Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) are prime contenders to gain computational advantages over classical algorithms using near-term quantum machines. As such, many endeavors have been made to accelerate the optimization of modern VQAs in past years. To further improve the capability of VQAs, here we propose a QUantum DIstributed Optimization scheme (dubbed as QUDIO), whose backends support both real quantum devices and various quantum simulators. Unlike traditional VQAs subsuming a single quantum chip or simulator, QUDIO collaborates with multiple quantum machines or simulators to complete learning tasks. In doing so, the required wall-clock time for optimization can be continuously reduced by increasing the accessible computational resources when ignoring the communication and synchronization time. Moreover, through the lens of optimization theory, we unveil the potential factors that could affect the convergence of QUDIO. In addition, we systematically understand the ability of QUDIO to reduce wall-clock time via two standard benchmarks, which are hand-written image classification and the ground energy estimation of the dihydrogen. Our proposal facilitates the development of advanced VQAs to narrow the gap between the state of the art and applications with the quantum advantage.
Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) are prime contenders to gain computational advantages over classical algorithms using near-term quantum machines. As such, many endeavors have been made to accelerate the optimization of modern VQAs in past years. To further improve the capability of VQAs, here we propose a QUantum DIstributed Optimization scheme (dubbed as QUDIO), whose backends support both real quantum devices and various quantum simulators. Unlike traditional VQAs subsuming a single quantum chip or simulator, QUDIO collaborates with multiple quantum machines or simulators to complete learning tasks. In doing so, the required wall-clock time for optimization can be continuously reduced by increasing the accessible computational resources when ignoring the communication and synchronization time. Moreover, through the lens of optimization theory, we unveil the potential factors that could affect the convergence of QUDIO. In addition, we systematically understand the ability of QUDIO to reduce wall-clock time via two standard benchmarks, which are hand-written image classification and the ground energy estimation of the dihydrogen. Our proposal facilitates the development of advanced VQAs to narrow the gap between the state of the art and applications with the quantum advantage.
Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) have the potential of utilizing near-term quantum machines to gain certain computational advantages over classical methods. Nevertheless, modern VQAs suffer from cumbersome computational overhead, hampered by the tradition of employing a solitary quantum processor to handle large-volume data. As such, to better exert the superiority of VQAs, it is of great significance to improve their runtime efficiency. Here we devise an efficient distributed optimization scheme, called QUDIO, to address this issue. Specifically, in QUDIO, a classical central server partitions the learning problem into multiple subproblems and allocate them to multiple local nodes where each of them consists of a quantum processor and a classical optimizer. During the training procedure, all local nodes proceed parallel optimization and the classical server synchronizes optimization information among local nodes timely. In doing so, we prove a sublinear convergence rate of QUDIO in terms of the number of global iteration under the ideal scenario, while the system imperfection may incur divergent optimization. Numerical results on standard benchmarks demonstrate that QUDIO can surprisingly achieve a superlinear runtime speedup with respect to the number of local nodes. Our proposal can be readily mixed with other advanced VQAs-based techniques to narrow the gap between the state of the art and applications with quantum advantage.
Abstract The variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is a leading strategy that exploits noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) machines to tackle chemical problems. It is expected to demonstrate quantum advantage when handling a large number of qubits, where the density matrix cannot be processed efficiently on classical computers. To gain such computational advantages on large-scale problems, a feasible solution is the QUantum DIstributed Optimization (QUDIO) scheme, which partitions the original problem into $$\varvec{K}$$ K subproblems and allocates them to $$\varvec{K}$$ K quantum machines followed by the parallel optimization. Despite the provable acceleration ratio, the efficiency of QUDIO may heavily degrade by the synchronization operation. To conquer this issue, here we propose Shuffle-QUDIO to involve shuffle operations into local Hamiltonians during the quantum distributed optimization. Compared with QUDIO, Shuffle-QUDIO significantly reduces the communication frequency among quantum processors and simultaneously achieves better trainability. Particularly, we prove that Shuffle-QUDIO enables a faster convergence rate over QUDIO. Extensive numerical experiments are conducted to verify that Shuffle-QUDIO allows both a wall-clock time speedup and low approximation error in the tasks of estimating the ground state energy of a molecule. We empirically demonstrate that our proposal can be seamlessly integrated with other acceleration techniques, such as operator grouping, to further improve the efficacy of VQE.
In recent years, as datasets have grown larger, quantum computing has shown potential in addressing the rapidly increasing costs of data processing due to its superposition and entanglement capabilities. Limited by quantum hardware and the number of controllable qubits, variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) are algorithms suitable for NISQ devices, capable of computation on medium-scale noisy devices. VQAs are hybrid classical-quantum algorithms that use parameterized quantum circuits to prepare parameterized quantum states and employ classical optimizers to minimize objective functions, enabling efficient solutions for complex problems. Classical optimizers reduce the stringent requirements on quantum hardware and can achieve quantum advantage on current devices. This paper systematically elaborates on the core foundational theories of quantum computing and neural networks, with a focus on reviewing the research and application status of VQAs in three main scenarios: machine learning (supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning), solving systems of equations (linear and nonlinear), and network attack detection. It analyzes the current technical bottlenecks in this field and provides prospects for future development, offering a reference for further research on variational quantum algorithms.
Fault-tolerant quantum computers, when realized, guarantee significant speedups for particular computational tasks. Quantum hardware in the near term, however, is limited to low hundreds of noisy qubits that are not error-corrected. To leverage such devices as well as accommodate rapid developments in both hardware and algorithms, variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) were introduced. These algorithms have the potential to be useful in areas such as chemistry, optimization, machine learning, among others. Despite this potential, the largest experiment to date has employed just twelve qubits to implement the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE), a VQA for simulating ground state energies of fermionic systems. In this dissertation, we present several methods for extending and further developing VQAs to step closer towards realizing applications in which quantum computers can provide meaningful advantages over classical computers. In the first part, we present methods for analyzing and optimizing parameterized quantum circuits (PQCs), a core component in VQAs for approximating target quantum states, e.g. ground state wavefunctions in VQE. To compare among PQCs and guide their design and selection, we introduce a set of algorithm-independent descriptors that can be estimated from simulations. Using these descriptors, we rule out circuits with limited capabilities in expressive and entangling powers. Next, we present a strategy for optimizing PQCs with large parameter counts and high redundancy by removing circuit operations that are less important for optimizing the algorithm objective, effectively reducing the search space. We demonstrate that this method enables larger VQE simulations by converging previously difficult optimizations while additionally reducing circuit resources. In the second part, we present methods for developing VQAs that are related to the quantum hardware. We introduce a new algorithm for simulating components of a quantum processor using an existing quantum computer. The goal of this application is to leverage near-term devices and algorithms to aid in the design of more powerful next-generation quantum hardware. Lastly, we present a guide for algorithm prototyping by deploying instances of VQAs on quantum computers via the cloud. We demonstrate instances of two algorithms, the quantum autoencoder and classifier, on an eight-qubit device. While further advancements in hardware and algorithms lie ahead, our work, along with developments from previous studies, represents significant progress towards realizing practical quantum advantage.
Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) are the leading candidates for practical applications of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. Recently, pulse-based variational quantum algorithms (p-VQAs) have emerged as a compelling alternative to traditional gate-based VQAs. By optimizing continuous control fields directly on hardware-native Hamiltonians, pulse-based methods are easy to implement and can significantly reduce quantum resource overhead, thereby enhancing the overall performance of quantum algorithms on NISQ devices. In this review, we present a comprehensive survey over recent advances in p-VQAs, covering theory, algorithms, and hardware deployments across various quantum computing platforms. We also review applications of p-VQAs to variational quantum eigensolver in quantum chemistry, quantum approximate optimization algorithm for combinatorial optimization, and quantum machine learning tasks.
Variational quantum algorithm (VQA), which is comprised of a classical optimizer and a parameterized quantum circuit, emerges as one of the most promising approaches for harvesting the power of quantum computers in the noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) era. However, the deployment of VQAs on contemporary NISQ devices often faces considerable system and time-dependant noise and prohibitively slow training speeds. On the other hand, the expensive supporting resources and infrastructure make quantum computers extremely keen on high utilization. In this paper, we propose a virtualized way of building up a quantum backend for variational quantum algorithms: rather than relying on a single physical device which tends to introduce temporal-dependant device-specific noise with worsening performance as time-since-calibration grows, we propose to constitute a quantum ensemble, which dynamically distributes quantum tasks asynchronously across a set of physical devices, and adjusting the ensemble configuration with respect to machine status. In addition to reduced machine-dependant noise, the ensemble can provide significant speedups for VQA training. With this idea, we build a novel VQA training framework called EQC that comprises: (i) a system architecture for asynchronous parallel VQA cooperative training; (ii) an analytic model for assessing the quality of the returned VQA gradient over a particular device concerning its architecture, transpilation, and runtime conditions; (iii) a weighting mechanism to adjust the quantum ensemble's computational contribution according to the systems' current performance. Evaluations comprising 500K circuit evaluations across 10 IBMQ devices using a VQE and a QAOA applications demonstrate that EQC can attain error rates close to the most performant device of the ensemble, while boosting the training speed by 10.5x on average (up to 86x and at least 5.2x).