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IEEE Access

Enhancing Text Classification Through Quantum Transfer Learning: A Hybrid Quantum-Classical Approach With Complex Kernel Self-Attention Networks

Xiaoxiao Chen, Xiaoping Lou

Published Jan 1, 2025• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum computing, with its unique principles such as superposition and entanglement, promises to transform various domains, including artificial intelligence. This study investigates the fusion of quantum computing with contemporary AI technologies through quantum transfer learning. We introduce the Complex Quantum Kernel Self-Attention Network (CQKSAN), a novel model that leverages quantum circuits and self-attention mechanisms to boost text classification performance. By applying quantum transfer learning, CQKSAN harnesses the strengths of pre-trained classical models and enhances them with quantum capabilities. Experimental results on multiple binary classification datasets demonstrate that CQKSAN achieves a more efficient learning process. Specifically, it improves training accuracy and validation accuracy by up to 24.31% and 28.35%, respectively, and increases the Matthews Correlation Coefficient by 113.10%. Moreover, CQKSAN consistently outperforms the BERT baseline in both training and validation accuracy across various datasets, showcasing its strong learning capability and generalization performance in handling tasks with diverse linguistic structures and complex semantics. Our findings underscore the potential of hybrid quantum-classical approaches, while also identifying the current limitations and paving the way for future research in fully quantum-based learning systems.

DOI
10.1109/access.2025.3593052

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Quantum computing, with its unique principles such as superposition and entanglement, promises to transform various domains, including artificial intelligence. This study investigates the fusion of quantum computing with contemporary AI technologies through quantum transfer learning. We introduce the Complex Quantum Kernel Self-Attention Network (CQKSAN), a novel model that leverages quantum circuits and self-attention mechanisms to boost text classification performance. By applying quantum transfer learning, CQKSAN harnesses the strengths of pre-trained classical models and enhances them with quantum capabilities. Experimental results on multiple binary classification datasets demonstrate that CQKSAN achieves a more efficient learning process. Specifically, it improves training accuracy and validation accuracy by up to 24.31% and 28.35%, respectively, and increases the Matthews Correlation Coefficient by 113.10%. Moreover, CQKSAN consistently outperforms the BERT baseline in both training and validation accuracy across various datasets, showcasing its strong learning capability and generalization performance in handling tasks with diverse linguistic structures and complex semantics. Our findings underscore the potential of hybrid quantum-classical approaches, while also identifying the current limitations and paving the way for future research in fully quantum-based learning systems.
Fine-tuning BERT for text classification can be computationally challenging and requires careful hyper-parameter tuning. Recent studies have highlighted the potential of quantum algorithms to outperform conventional methods in machine learning and text classification tasks. In this work, we propose a hybrid approach that integrates an n-qubit quantum circuit with a classical BERT model for text classification. We evaluate the performance of the fine-tuned classical-quantum BERT and demonstrate its feasibility as well as its potential in advancing this research area. Our experimental results show that the proposed hybrid model achieves performance that is competitive with, and in some cases better than, the classical baselines on standard benchmark datasets. Furthermore, our approach demonstrates the adaptability of classical-quantum models for fine-tuning pre-trained models across diverse datasets. Overall, the hybrid model highlights the promise of quantum computing in achieving improved performance for text classification tasks.
Fine-tuning BERT for text classification can be computationally challenging and requires careful hyper-parameter tuning. Recent studies have highlighted the potential of quantum algorithms to outperform conventional methods in machine learning and text classification tasks. In this work, we propose a hybrid approach that integrates an n-qubit quantum circuit with a classical BERT model for text classification. We evaluate the performance of the fine-tuned classical-quantum BERT and demonstrate its feasibility as well as its potential in advancing this research area. Our experimental results show that the proposed hybrid model achieves performance that is competitive with, and in some cases better than, the classical baselines on standard benchmark datasets. Furthermore, our approach demonstrates the adaptability of classical–quantum models for fine-tuning pre-trained models across diverse datasets. Overall, the hybrid model highlights the promise of quantum computing in achieving improved performance for text classification tasks.
Abstract Hybrid quantum-classical classifiers promise to positively impact critical aspects of natural language processing tasks, particularly classification-related ones. Among the possibilities currently investigated, quantum transfer learning, i.e., using a quantum circuit for fine-tuning pre-trained classical models for a specific task, is attracting significant attention as a potential platform for proving quantum advantage. This work shows potential advantages, in terms of both performance and expressiveness, of quantum transfer learning algorithms trained on embedding vectors extracted from a large language model to perform classification on a classical linguistics task—acceptability judgements. Acceptability judgement is the ability to determine whether a sentence is considered natural and well-formed by a native speaker. The approach has been tested on sentences extracted from ItaCoLa, a corpus that collects Italian sentences labeled with their acceptability judgement. The evaluation phase shows results for the quantum transfer learning pipeline comparable to state-of-the-art classical transfer learning algorithms, proving current quantum computers’ capabilities to tackle NLP tasks for ready-to-use applications. Furthermore, a qualitative linguistic analysis, aided by explainable AI methods, reveals the capabilities of quantum transfer learning algorithms to correctly classify complex and more structured sentences, compared to their classical counterpart. This finding sets the ground for a quantifiable quantum advantage in NLP in the near future.
Abstract Quantum Machine Learning (QML) is a promising field that combines the power of quantum computing with machine learning. Variational quantum circuits, where parameters of circuits are learned classically, have been widely used in many recent applications of QML. This is an instance of a hybrid quantum-classical framework, where both classical and quantum components are present. However, applying these techniques to applications involving massive data is a challenging task. One way to overcome this, is using the concept of classical-quantum transfer learning with the help of dressed quantum circuit, introduced recently, where the underlying neural architecture is pre-trained classically, but at the final steps (decision layer), a quantum circuit is used, followed by quantum measurements and post-processing to classify images with high precision. In this paper, we applied hybrid classical-quantum transfer learning to another task of massive data processing, i.e. Natural Language Processing (NLP). We show how to (binary) classify short texts (e.g., SMS) with classical-quantum transfer learning, which was originally applied to image processing only. Our quantum network was pre-trained by Bidirectional Encoder Representations from the Transformers (BERT) model, and its variational quantum circuit is fine-tuned for text processing. We evaluated the performance of our hybrid neural architecture using the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve, which is typically used in the evaluation of classification problems. The results indicate high precision as well as lower loss function. To our knowledge, our work is the first application of quantum transfer learning to the area of NLP. Finally a comparison with a tool that uses learning but in a different way than transfer learning is presented
Text classification remains among the most significant tasks in natural language processing and the field has been used in healthcare, law, social media analysis, and economic literature. Classical attention networks existing machine learning approaches and deep learning approaches, including LSTM, BiLSTM, Transformers, and classical attention networks, are susceptible to such problems as long-range dependencies and semantic ambiguity, as well as sparse or underrepresented text. To deal with these deficiencies, this research presents a proposed a Quantum-Enhanced Semantic Attention Network (QESAN), a quantum computing concept integrated into semantic attention-based deep learning paradigm. The proposed QESAN coded textual features using amplitude encoding, quantum superposition, and entanglement-like transformations, such that the model is able to learn not only complex relations between interdependencies, but also fairly subtle semantic relations which are generally hard to learn on classical models. The result of these quantum-enhanced representations is then sent through an attention mechanism which acts on the most semantically significant aspects to produce results that are context-sensitive and can be interpreted. The Kaggle Quantum Programming experimental results indicate that QESAN is effective with accuracy of 98.7 which is far superior than the LSTM, BiLSTM, Transformer, and classical attention networks. The results indicate the ability of QESAN to solve the conventional issues of the text classification process particularly in the assignment of dealing with the long-range dependencies, semantic ambiguity, and sparse data. Overall, the integration of the concept of quantum computing with the attention-based deep learning provides the scalable and resilient solution to the issue of the modern text classification problems of the high-performance.
The Self-Attention Mechanism (SAM) excels at distilling important information from the interior of data to improve the computational efficiency of models. Nevertheless, many Quantum Machine Learning (QML) models lack the ability to distinguish the intrinsic connections of information like SAM, which limits their effectiveness on massive high-dimensional quantum data. To tackle the above issue, a Quantum Kernel Self-Attention Mechanism (QKSAM) is introduced to combine the data representation merit of Quantum Kernel Methods (QKM) with the efficient information extraction capability of SAM. Further, a Quantum Kernel Self-Attention Network (QKSAN) framework is proposed based on QKSAM, which ingeniously incorporates the Deferred Measurement Principle (DMP) and conditional measurement techniques to release half of quantum resources by mid-circuit measurement, thereby bolstering both feasibility and adaptability. Simultaneously, the Quantum Kernel Self-Attention Score (QKSAS) with an exponentially large characterization space is spawned to accommodate more information and determine the measurement conditions. Eventually, four QKSAN sub-models are deployed on PennyLane and IBM Qiskit platforms to perform binary classification on MNIST and Fashion MNIST, where the QKSAS tests and correlation assessments between noise immunity and learning ability are executed on the best-performing sub-model. The paramount experimental finding is that the QKSAN subclasses possess the potential learning advantage of acquiring impressive accuracies exceeding 98.05% with far fewer parameters than classical machine learning models. Predictably, QKSAN lays the foundation for future quantum computers to perform machine learning on massive amounts of data while driving advances in areas such as quantum computer vision.