Noise and decoherence are two major obstacles to the implementation of large-scale quantum computing. Because of the no-cloning theorem, which says we cannot make an exact copy of an arbitrary quantum state, simple redundancy will not work in a quantum context, and unwanted interactions with the environment can destroy coherence and thus the quantum nature of the computation. Because of the parallel and distributed nature of classical neural networks, they have long been successfully used to deal with incomplete or damaged data. In this work, we show that our model of a quantum neural network (QNN) is similarly robust to noise, and that, in addition, it is robust to decoherence. Moreover, robustness to noise and decoherence is not only maintained but improved as the size of the system is increased. Noise and decoherence may even be of advantage in training, as it helps correct for overfitting. We demonstrate the robustness using entanglement as a means for pattern storage in a qubit array. Our results provide evidence that machine learning approaches can obviate otherwise recalcitrant problems in quantum computing.
Noise and decoherence are two major obstacles to the implementation of large-scale quantum computing. Because of the no-cloning theorem, which says we cannot make an exact copy of an arbitrary quantum state, simple redundancy will not work in a quantum context, and unwanted interactions with the environment can destroy coherence and thus the quantum nature of the computation. Because of the parallel and distributed nature of classical neural networks, they have long been successfully used to deal with incomplete or damaged data. In this work, we show that our model of a quantum neural network (QNN) is similarly robust to noise, and that, in addition, it is robust to decoherence. Moreover, robustness to noise and decoherence is not only maintained but improved as the size of the system is increased. Noise and decoherence may even be of advantage in training, as it helps correct for overfitting. We demonstrate the robustness using entanglement as a means for pattern storage in a qubit array. Our results provide evidence that machine learning approaches can obviate otherwise recalcitrant problems in quantum computing.
Noise and decoherence are two major obstacles to the implementation of large-scale quantum computing. Because of the no-cloning theorem, which says we cannot make an exact copy of an arbitrary quantum state, simple redundancy will not work in a quantum context, and unwanted interactions with the environment can destroy coherence and thus the quantum nature of the computation. Because of the parallel and distributed nature of classical neural networks, they have long been successfully used to deal with incomplete or damaged data. In this work, we show that our model of a quantum neural network (QNN) is similarly robust to noise, and that, in addition, it is robust to decoherence. Moreover, robustness to noise and decoherence is not only maintained but improved as the size of the system is increased. Noise and decoherence may even be of advantage in training, as it helps correct for overfitting. We demonstrate the robustness using entanglement as a means for pattern storage in a qubit array. Our results provide evidence that machine learning approaches can obviate otherwise recalcitrant problems in quantum computing.
ABSTRACT In the current quantum computing paradigm, significant focus is placed on the reduction or mitigation of quantum decoherence. When designing new quantum processing units, the general objective is to reduce the amount of noise qubits are subject to, and in algorithm design, a large effort is underway to provide scalable error correction or mitigation techniques. Yet some previous work has indicated that certain classes of quantum algorithms, such as quantum machine learning, may, in fact, be intrinsically robust to or even benefit from the presence of a small amount of noise. Here, we demonstrate that noise levels in quantum hardware can be effectively tuned to enhance the ability of quantum neural networks to generalize data, acting akin to regularisation in classical neural networks. As an example, we consider two regression tasks, where, by tuning the noise level in the circuit, we demonstrated improvement of the validation mean squared error loss. Moreover, we demonstrate the method's effectiveness by numerically simulating QNN training on a realistic model of a noisy superconducting quantum computer.
Several important models of machine learning algorithms have been successfully generalized to the quantum world, with potential applications to data analytics in quantum physics that can be implemented on the near future quantum computers. However, noise and decoherence are two major obstacles to the practical implementation of quantum machine learning. In this work, we introduce a general framework for the robustness analysis of quantum machine learning algorithms against noise and decoherence. We argue that fidelity is the only pick of measuring the robustness. A robust bound is derived and an algorithm is developed to check whether or not a quantum machine learning algorithm is robust with respect to the training data. In particular, this algorithm can help to defense attacks and improve the accuracy as it can identify useful new training data during checking. The effectiveness of our robust bound and algorithm is confirmed by the case study of quantum phase recognition. Furthermore, this experiment demonstrates a trade-off between the accuracy of quantum machine learning algorithms and their robustness.
Neural networks have achieved impressive breakthroughs in both industry and academia. How to effectively develop neural networks on quantum computing devices is a challenging open problem. Here, we propose a new quantum neural network model for quantum neural computing using (classically controlled) single-qubit operations and measurements on real-world quantum systems with naturally occurring environment-induced decoherence, which greatly reduces the difficulties of physical implementations. Our model circumvents the problem that the state-space size grows exponentially with the number of neurons, thereby greatly reducing memory requirements and allowing for fast optimization with traditional optimization algorithms. We benchmark our model for handwritten digit recognition and other nonlinear classification tasks. The results show that our model has an amazing nonlinear classification ability and robustness to noise. Furthermore, our model allows quantum computing to be applied in a wider context and inspires the earlier development of a quantum neural computer than standard quantum computers.
One of the most promising new directions in quantum computing and artificial intelligence convergence is the Quantum Neural Networks (QNNs) that can potentially revolutionize the manner in which intelligent systems are designed, trained, and implemented. Although traditional deep learning models have proven to be incredibly successful in fields like computer vision, natural language processing and autonomous systems, they are becoming limited by computational bottlenecks, energy use, and scalability constraints when operating on large high-dimensional data. The distinctive principles of quantum mechanics (superposition, entanglement, and quantum parallelism) may be applied to the QNNs to provide a distinct computational paradigm with the ability to execute exponentially complicated computations more effectively than his classical counterparts. This article gives an in-depth analysis of QNNs as the new frontier of artificial intelligence. We start with the description of the theoretical foundations of quantum computation and their realization in the form of neural networks. We then examine state-of-the-art QNN architectures, such as hybrid quantum-classical models that help overcome present quantum hardware limitations in relation to the capabilities of classical machine learning. Some of the upcoming applications are showcased including molecular simulation and drug discovery and financial modeling, optimization, cryptography and intelligent automation. Such applications reveal the revolutionary power of QNNs to tackle the issues that cannot be tackled by traditional systems. Nonetheless, there are also major obstacles on the way to a practical implementation of QNN. Problems that still remain a barrier to widespread adoption include quantum decoherence, noise in near-term quantum devices, and the inability to scale qubit architectures or to train large-scale quantum models. In order to overcome these obstacles, we speak about the current research work on the topic of error correction, variational algorithms, and hybrid system designs. Also we examine the ethical and societal ramifications of quantum-accelerated AI, such as security, data sovereignty, and technological equity globally.
In the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era, one of the key questions is how to deal with the high noise level existing in physical quantum bits (qubits). Quantum error correction is promising but requires an extensive number (e.g., over 1,000) of physical qubits to create one "perfect" qubit, exceeding the capacity of the existing quantum computers. This paper aims to tackle the noise issue from another angle: instead of creating perfect qubits for general quantum algorithms, we investigate the potential to mitigate the noise issue for dedicate algorithms. Specifically, this paper targets quantum neural network (QNN), and proposes to learn the errors in the training phase, so that the identified QNN model can be resilient to noise. As a result, the implementation of QNN needs no or a small number of additional physical qubits, which is more realistic for the near-term quantum computers. To achieve this goal, an application-specific compiler is essential: on the one hand, the error cannot be learned if the mapping from logical qubits to physical qubits exists randomness; on the other hand, the compiler needs to be efficient so that the lengthy training procedure can be completed in a reasonable time. In this paper, we utilize the recent QNN framework, QuantumFlow, as a case study. Experimental results show that the proposed approach can optimize QNN models for different errors in qubits, achieving up to 28% accuracy improvement compared with the model obtained by the error-agnostic training.