Classical diffusion models have achieved remarkable results in terms of sample quality and variability. The quantum counterpart of these models is still to be explored thoroughly and offers a promising research direction in the field of quantum generative models. In this work, we introduce two versions of a quantum diffusion model, using parameterized quantum circuits to sample from quantum state distributions, while performing training via classical simulations. The first model is a quantum-hardware-oriented design, based on denoising diffusion probabilistic models, for which we demonstrate an implementation on real quantum hardware. The second model is a hybrid approach, based on denoising diffusion implicit models, that uses a classical neural network to enhance the expressive power. We show that the second version produces samples of higher quality and variability, but requires additional classical-quantum encoding and decoding overhead, underscoring a trade-off between expressive power and hardware efficiency. We demonstrate our method on MNIST images encoded as quantum states, as sample quality is easier to visualize and objective metrics are more widely available. While our results do not surpass classical diffusion models in the generation of classical samples, this study suggests the viability of using quantum diffusion models for learning quantum state distributions.
Classical diffusion models have achieved remarkable results in terms of sample quality and variability. The quantum counterpart of these models is still to be explored thoroughly and offers a promising research direction in the field of quantum generative models. In this work, we introduce two versions of a quantum diffusion model, using parameterized quantum circuits to sample from quantum state distributions, while performing training via classical simulations. The first model is a quantum-hardware-oriented design, based on denoising diffusion probabilistic models, for which we demonstrate an implementation on real quantum hardware. The second model is a hybrid approach, based on denoising diffusion implicit models, that uses a classical neural network to enhance the expressive power. We show that the second version produces samples of higher quality and variability, but requires additional classical-quantum encoding and decoding overhead, underscoring a trade-off between expressive power and hardware efficiency. We demonstrate our method on MNIST images encoded as quantum states, as sample quality is easier to visualize and objective metrics are more widely available. While our results do not surpass classical diffusion models in the generation of classical samples, this study suggests the viability of using quantum diffusion models for learning quantum state distributions.
Abstract Denoising diffusion probabilistic models have become increasingly important in machine learning, but their quantum counterpart has not been studied yet. In this work, we propose a quantum version of a generative diffusion model. In this algorithm, artificial neural networks are replaced with parameterized quantum circuits, in order to manipulate quantum states directly. We present both a full quantum version and a latent classical-quantum version of the algorithm. In the latent model, the parameterized quantum circuits are trained in a low dimensional representation of data, obtained by employing a pre-trained classical autoencoder. For both models, we show a method for conditioning the output distribution, utilizing ancillary qubits. The models' performance have been evaluated using quantitative metrics complemented by qualitative assessments. For the latent model, we show the implementation of a simplified version on real quantum hardware. The execution on a NISQ device allows to evaluate the performance of the algorithm in the presence of noise.
Generative Artificial Intelligence is one of the most relevant technologies of our century, enabling digital machines not only to analyze or classify data but also to generate new content such as images, text, and video. This technology relies on deep learning algorithms designed to capture complex relationships from finite data sets. In this context, Diffusion Models have recently emerged as state-of-the-art in deep generative modeling thanks to their ability to produce high-quality data. Their pipeline typically consists of a forward diffusion process, where data samples are progressively corrupted into pure (classical) noise, and a reverse denoising process, where deep neural networks learn to reverse the diffusion process and then generate new synthetic samples. In parallel, Quantum Machine Learning represents one of the most promising applications of quantum computing. However, currently available quantum processors, known as Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices, are composed of tens or hundreds of noisy qubits. Therefore, designing scalable and efficient practical quantum algorithms represents a significant challenge. This thesis proposes the first generalization of classical Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models to the quantum domain, introducing the novel generative paradigm of Quantum Diffusion Models. In particular, the three possible scenarios are formalized and implemented: (i) classical data corrupted with Gaussian noise and a reverse process implemented via a quantum neural network; (ii) quantum data corrupted with quantum noise and a denoising process through a classical deep neural network; and (iii) a fully quantum approach, where both forward and backward processes are implemented within a quantum framework. Subsequently, the impact of different stochastic dynamics in the forward process is analyzed using the formalism of Quantum Stochastic Walks. We observe that a specific hybrid quantum-classical dynamics produces more statistically robust models, capable of generating sets of images closely resembling real ones compared to purely classical dynamics. Furthermore, we propose a hybrid quantum-classical diffusion model based on Quantum Walks that exploits the intrinsic noise of real quantum processors as a useful resource for generating images. This model is implementable on current NISQ devices and scalable, as it allows the generation of images of any size, requiring q + 1 qubits for grayscale images with pixel intensities in the range [0, 2^q - 1]. Finally, an application in the context of medical imaging is presented, specifically the generation of 64 × 64 color images of blood cells from the BloodMNIST dataset and 200 × 200 brain MRI images from the BraTS2020 dataset.
Quantum diffusion models provide a physics-consistent route to generative learning by formulating noising and denoising directly on quantum states. However, applying such models to classical high-dimensional data is constrained by the qubit cost of state encoding and the computational burden of simulating large density operators. We propose a scalable hybrid generative pipeline that combines a classical autoencoder for dimensionality reduction with a mixed-state quantum denoising diffusion probabilistic model (MSQuDDPM) operating in the learned latent space. The autoencoder compresses data into compact latent codes that can be embedded into a small-qubit Hilbert space, after which the quantum diffusion model learns a generative distribution over latent density operators and decodes samples back to the original domain. Algorithmically, we simplify the reverse dynamics by predicting an estimate of the clean state ρ0 at timestep t and computing the one-step reverse update via an analytic backward propagation rule, rather than learning an explicit predictor for ρt−1. We demonstrate the proposed approach on MNIST image generation and discuss how mixed-state quantum diffusion can serve as a practical backbone for hybrid quantum--classical generative modeling under realistic qubit budgets.
In recent years, machine learning models like DALL-E, Craiyon, and Stable Diffusion have gained significant attention for their ability to generate high-resolution images from concise descriptions. Concurrently, quantum computing is showing promising advances, especially with quantum machine learning which capitalizes on quantum mechanics to meet the increasing computational requirements of traditional machine learning algorithms. This paper explores the integration of quantum machine learning and variational quantum circuits to augment the efficacy of diffusion-based image generation models. Specifically, we address two challenges of classical diffusion models: their low sampling speed and the extensive parameter requirements. We introduce two quantum diffusion models and benchmark their capabilities against their classical counterparts using MNIST digits, Fashion MNIST, and CIFAR-10. Our models surpass the classical models with similar parameter counts in terms of performance metrics FID, SSIM, and PSNR. Moreover, we introduce a consistency model unitary single sampling architecture that combines the diffusion procedure into a single step, enabling a fast one-step image generation.
Generative models for quantum data pose significant challenges but hold immense potential in fields such as chemoinformatics and quantum physics. Quantum denoising diffusion probabilistic models (QuDDPMs) enable efficient learning of quantum data distributions by progressively scrambling and denoising quantum states. However, existing implementations typically rely on circuit-based random unitary dynamics, which can be costly to implement and sensitive to control imperfections, particularly on analog quantum hardware. We propose the chaotic quantum diffusion model, a framework that generates projected ensembles via chaotic Hamiltonian time evolution, providing a flexible and hardware-compatible diffusion mechanism. Requiring only global, time-independent control, our approach substantially reduces implementation overhead across diverse analog quantum platforms while achieving accuracy comparable to QuDDPMs. This method improves trainability and robustness, broadening the applicability of quantum generative modeling.
Deep generative models are key-enabling technology to computer vision, text generation, and large language models. Denoising diffusion probabilistic models (DDPMs) have recently gained much attention due to their ability to generate diverse and high-quality samples in many computer vision tasks, as well as to incorporate flexible model architectures and a relatively simple training scheme. Quantum generative models, empowered by entanglement and superposition, have brought new insight to learning classical and quantum data. Inspired by the classical counterpart, we propose the quantum denoising diffusion probabilistic model (QuDDPM) to enable efficiently trainable generative learning of quantum data. QuDDPM adopts sufficient layers of circuits to guarantee expressivity, while it introduces multiple intermediate training tasks as interpolation between the target distribution and noise to avoid barren plateau and guarantee efficient training. We provide bounds on the learning error and demonstrate QuDDPM's capability in learning correlated quantum noise model, quantum many-body phases, and topological structure of quantum data. The results provide a paradigm for versatile and efficient quantum generative learning.