Qiskit Machine Learning overview¶
Overview¶
Qiskit Machine Learning introduces fundamental computational building blocks - such as Quantum Kernels and Quantum Neural Networks - used in different applications, including classification and regression. On the one hand, this design is very easy to use and allows users to rapidly prototype a first model without deep quantum computing knowledge. On the other hand, Qiskit Machine Learning is very flexible, and users can easily extend it to support cutting-edge quantum machine learning research.
Qiskit Machine Learning provides the QuantumKernel
class that can be easily used to directly compute
kernel matrices for given datasets or can be passed to a Quantum Support Vector Classifier
(QSVC) or
Quantum Support Vector Regressor (QSVR)
to quickly start solving classification or regression problems.
It also can be used with many other existing kernel-based machine learning algorithms from established
classical frameworks.
Qiskit Machine Learning defines a generic interface for neural networks that is implemented by different
quantum neural networks. Multiple implementations are readily provided, such as the
OpflowQNN,
the TwoLayerQNN,
and the CircuitQNN.
The OpflowQNN allows users to combine parametrized quantum circuits
with quantum mechanical observables. The circuits can be constructed using, for example, building blocks
from Qiskit’s circuit library, and the QNN’s output is given by the expected value of the observable.
The TwoLayerQNN is a special case of the
OpflowQNN that takes as input a feature map and an ansatz.
The CircuitQNN directly takes the quantum circuit’s
measurements as output without an observable.
The output can be used either as a batch of samples, i.e., a list of bitstrings measured from the circuit’s
qubits, or as a sparse vector of the resulting sampling probabilities for each bitstring. The former is of
interest in learning distributions resulting from a given quantum circuit, while the latter finds application,
e.g., in regression or classification. A post-processing step can be used to interpret a given bitstring in
a particular context, e.g. translating it into a set of classes.
The neural networks include the functionality to evaluate them for a given input as well as to compute the
corresponding gradients, which is important for efficient training. To train and use neural networks,
Qiskit Machine Learning provides a variety of learning algorithms such as the
NeuralNetworkClassifier and
NeuralNetworkRegressor.
Both take a QNN as input and then use it in a classification or regression context.
To allow an easy start, two convenience implementations are provided - the Variational Quantum Classifier
(VQC)
as well as the Variational Quantum Regressor (VQR).
Both take just a feature map and an ansatz and construct the underlying QNN automatically.
In addition to the models provided directly in Qiskit Machine Learning, it has the
TorchConnector,
which allows users to integrate all of our quantum neural networks directly into the
PyTorch
open source machine learning library. Thanks to Qiskit’s gradient framework, this includes automatic
differentiation - the overall gradients computed by PyTorch
during the backpropagation take into
account quantum neural networks, too. The flexible design also allows the building of connectors
to other packages in the future.