Label propagation is an essential semi-supervised learning method based on graphs, which has a broad spectrum of applications in pattern recognition and data mining. This paper proposes a quantum semi-supervised classifier based on label propagation. Considering the difficulty of graph construction, we develop a variational quantum label propagation (VQLP) method. In this method, a locally parameterized quantum circuit is created to reduce the parameters required in the optimization. Furthermore, we design a quantum semi-supervised binary classifier based on hybrid Bell and Z bases measurement, which has a shallower circuit depth and is more suitable for implementation on near-term quantum devices. We demonstrate the performance of the quantum semi-supervised classifier on the Iris data set, and the simulation results show that the quantum semi-supervised classifier has higher classification accuracy than the swap test classifier. This work opens a new path to quantum machine learning based on graphs.
Label propagation is an essential semi-supervised learning method based on graphs, which has a broad spectrum of applications in pattern recognition and data mining. This paper proposes a quantum semi-supervised classifier based on label propagation. Considering the difficulty of graph construction, we develop a variational quantum label propagation (VQLP) method. In this method, a locally parameterized quantum circuit is created to reduce the parameters required in the optimization. Furthermore, we design a quantum semi-supervised binary classifier based on hybrid Bell and Z bases measurement, which has a shallower circuit depth and is more suitable for implementation on near-term quantum devices. We demonstrate the performance of the quantum semi-supervised classifier on the Iris data set, and the simulation results show that the quantum semi-supervised classifier has higher classification accuracy than the swap test classifier. This work opens a new path to quantum machine learning based on graphs.
Label propagation is an essential semi-supervised learning method based on graphs, which has a broad spectrum of applications in pattern recognition and data mining. This paper proposes a quantum semi-supervised classifier based on label propagation. Considering the difficulty of graph construction, we develop a variational quantum label propagation (VQLP) method. In this method, a locally parameterized quantum circuit is created to reduce the parameters required in the optimization. Furthermore, we design a quantum semi-supervised binary classifier based on hybrid Bell and Z bases measurement, which has shallower circuit depth and is more suitable for implementation on near-term quantum devices. We demonstrate the performance of the quantum semi-supervised classifier on the Iris data set, and the simulation results show that the quantum semi-supervised classifier has higher classification accuracy than the swap test classifier. This work opens a new path to quantum machine learning based on graphs.
This paper develops a hybrid quantum approach for graph-based semi-supervised learning to enhance performance in scenarios where labeled data is scarce. We introduce two enhanced quantum models, the Improved Laplacian Quantum Semi-Supervised Learning (ILQSSL) and the Improved Poisson Quantum Semi-Supervised Learning (IPQSSL), that incorporate advanced label propagation strategies within variational quantum circuits. These models utilize QR decomposition to embed graph structure directly into quantum states, thereby enabling more effective learning in low-label settings. We validate our methods across four benchmark datasets like Iris, Wine, Heart Disease, and German Credit Card -- and show that both ILQSSL and IPQSSL consistently outperform leading classical semi-supervised learning algorithms, particularly under limited supervision. Beyond standard performance metrics, we examine the effect of circuit depth and qubit count on learning quality by analyzing entanglement entropy and Randomized Benchmarking (RB). Our results suggest that while some level of entanglement improves the model's ability to generalize, increased circuit complexity may introduce noise that undermines performance on current quantum hardware. Overall, the study highlights the potential of quantum-enhanced models for semi-supervised learning, offering practical insights into how quantum circuits can be designed to balance expressivity and stability. These findings support the role of quantum machine learning in advancing data-efficient classification, especially in applications constrained by label availability and hardware limitations.
Recent advances in quantum technology have led to the development and the manufacturing of programmable quantum annealers that promise to solve certain combinatorial optimization problems faster than their classical counterparts. Semi-supervised learning is a machine learning technique that makes use of both labeled and unlabeled data for training, which enables a good classifier with only a small amount of labeled data. In this paper, we propose and theoretically analyze a graph-based semi-supervised learning method with the aid of the quantum annealing technique, which efficiently utilizes the quantum resources while maintaining good accuracy. We illustrate two classification examples, suggesting the feasibility of this method even with a small portion (30%) of labeled data involved.
Classification of quantum data is essential for quantum machine learning and near-term quantum technologies. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid quantum-classical framework for supervised quantum learning, which we call Variational Shadow Quantum Learning (VSQL). Our method in particular utilizes the classical shadows of quantum data, which fundamentally represent the side information of quantum data with respect to certain physical observables. Specifically, we first use variational shadow quantum circuits to extract classical features in a convolution way and then utilize a fully-connected neural network to complete the classification task. We show that this method could sharply reduce the number of parameters and thus better facilitate quantum circuit training. Simultaneously, less noise will be introduced since fewer quantum gates are employed in such shadow circuits. Moreover, we show that the Barren Plateau issue, a significant gradient vanishing problem in quantum machine learning, could be avoided in VSQL. Finally, we demonstrate the efficiency of VSQL in quantum classification via numerical experiments on the classification of quantum states and the recognition of multi-labeled handwritten digits. In particular, our VSQL approach outperforms existing variational quantum classifiers in the test accuracy in the binary case of handwritten digit recognition and notably requires much fewer parameters.
Abstract One-class classification (OCC) is a fundamental problem in pattern recognition with a wide range of applications. This work presents a semi-supervised quantum machine learning algorithm for such a problem, which we call a variational quantum one-class classifier (VQOCC). The algorithm is suitable for noisy intermediate-scale quantum computing because the VQOCC trains a fully-parameterized quantum autoencoder with a normal dataset and does not require decoding. The performance of the VQOCC is compared with that of the one-class support vector machine (OC-SVM), the kernel principal component analysis (PCA), and the deep convolutional autoencoder (DCAE) using handwritten digit and Fashion-MNIST datasets. The numerical experiment examined various structures of VQOCC by varying data encoding, the number of parameterized quantum circuit layers, and the size of the latent feature space. The benchmark shows that the classification performance of VQOCC is comparable to that of OC-SVM and PCA, although the number of model parameters grows only logarithmically with the data size. The quantum algorithm outperformed DCAE in most cases under similar training conditions. Therefore, our algorithm constitutes an extremely compact and effective machine learning model for OCC.
Quantum computing has been a prominent research area for decades, inspiring transformative fields such as quantum simulation, quantum teleportation, and quantum machine learning (QML), which are undergoing rapid development. Within QML, hybrid classical-quantum algorithms like Quantum Neural Networks (QNNs) and Variational Quantum Classifiers (VQCs) have shown promise in leveraging quantum circuits and classical optimizers to classify classical data efficiently. Simultaneously, classical machine learning has made significant strides in graph classification, employing Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) to analyze systems ranging from large-scale structures like the Large Hadron Collider to molecular and biological systems like proteins and DNA. Combining the advancements in quantum computing and graph classification presents a unique opportunity to develop quantum algorithms capable of extracting features from graphs and performing their classification effectively. In this paper, we propose a novel quantum encoding framework for graph classification using VQCs. Unlike existing approaches such as PCA-VQC, which rely on dimensionality reduction techniques like Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and may lead to information loss, our method preserves the integrity of graph data. Furthermore, our encoding approach is optimized for Noise-Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices, requiring a limited number of qubits while achieving comparable or superior classification performance to PCA-VQC. By constructing slightly more complex circuits tailored for graph encoding, we demonstrate that VQCs can effectively classify graphs within the constraints of current quantum hardware.