Quantum enhanced convolutional neural networks for NISQ computers

Feihong Shen, Jun Liu

The neural network and quantum computing are both significant and appealing fields, with their interactive disciplines promising for large-scale computing tasks that are untackled by conventional computers. However, both developments are restricted by the scope of the hardware development. Nevertheless, many neural network algorithms had been proposed before GPUs become powerful enough for running very deep models. Similarly, quantum algorithms can also be proposed as knowledge reserves before real quantum computers are easily accessible. Specifically, taking advantage of both the neural networks and quantum computation and designing quantum deep neural networks (QDNNs) for acceleration on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) processors is also an important research problem. As one of the most widely used neural network architectures, convolutional neural network (CNN) remains to be accelerated by quantum mechanisms, with only a few attempts have been demonstrated. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid quantum-classical circuit, namely Quantum Fourier Convolutional Network (QFCN). Our model achieves exponential speed-up compared with classical CNN theoretically and improves over the existing best result of quantum CNN. We demonstrate the potential of this architecture by applying it to different deep learning tasks, including traffic prediction and image classification.

Tristan Nagan, Ritesh Ajoodha

Feihong Shen, Jun Liu

The neural network and quantum computing are both significant and appealing fields, with their interactive disciplines promising for large-scale computing tasks that are untackled by conventional computers. However, both developments are restricted by the scope of the hardware development. Nevertheless, many neural network algorithms had been proposed before GPUs became powerful enough for running very deep models. Similarly, quantum algorithms can also be proposed as knowledge reserve before real quantum computers are easily accessible. Specifically, taking advantage of both the neural networks and quantum computation and designing quantum deep neural networks (QDNNs) for acceleration on the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) processors is also an important research problem. As one of the most widely used neural network architectures, convolutional neural network (CNN) remains to be accelerated by quantum mechanisms, with only a few attempts having been demonstrated. In this article, we propose a new hybrid quantum-classical circuit, namely, Quantum Fourier Convolutional Network (QFCN). Our model achieves exponential speedup compared with classical CNN theoretically and improves over the existing best result of quantum CNN. We demonstrate the potential of this architecture by applying it on different deep learning tasks, including traffic prediction and image classification.

Kanishka W. Palihakkara, Mahesh N. Jayakody

Erdem Şeker, Yusuf Kağan Bayraktaroğlu, Deniz Eren Çam +2 more

Classical convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved notable success in image classification but face challenges in scalability, interpretability, and computational cost. With the growing availability of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices, hybrid quantum-classical models offer a promising alternative by leveraging quantum parallelism and entanglement. In this work, we present a hybrid Quantum Convolutional Neural Network (QCNN) that integrates quantum convolutional layers into classical image classification pipeline for the MNIST dataset. Our architecture features a modular, low-depth Quantum Kernel Convolution (QKC) design suitable for near-term hardware. We implement the system using Qiskit and evaluate in terms of classification accuracy, circuit efficiency, and integration feasibility. Our results demonstrate that (i) the hybrid QCNN achieves similar accuracy to classical models while reducing the number of classical parameters, and (ii) quantum layers can successfully perform dimensionality reduction through entanglement-based pooling. This study highlights the potential of hybrid QCNN as a practical quantum-enhanced model for real-world image recognition tasks.

Iris Cong, Soonwon Choi, Mikhail D. Lukin