Amir Khoshaman, Walter Vinci, Brandon Denis, Evgeny Andriyash,and Mohammad H. Amin 

Variational autoencoders (VAEs) are powerful generative models with the salient ability to perform inference. Here, we introduce a quantum variational autoencoder (QVAE): a VAE whose latent generative process is implemented as a quantum Boltzmann machine (QBM). We show that our model can be trained end-to-end by maximizing a well-defined loss-function: a “quantum” lower- bound to a variational approximation of the log-likelihood. We use quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations to train and evaluate the performance of QVAEs. To achieve the best performance, we first create a VAE platform with discrete latent space generated by a restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM). Our model achieves state-of-the-art performance on the MNIST dataset when compared against similar approaches that only involve discrete variables in the generative process. We consider QVAEs with a smaller number of latent units to be able to perform QMC simulations, which are computationally expensive. We show that QVAEs can be trained effectively in regimes where quantum effects are relevant despite training via the quantum bound. Our findings open the way to the use of quantum computers to train QVAEs to achieve competitive performance for generative models. Placing a QBM in the latent space of a VAE leverages the full potential of current and next-generation quantum computers as sampling devices.

(22 Feb 2018) https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.05779.pdf 

Arash Vahdat

Collecting large training datasets, annotated with high-quality labels, is costly and time-consuming. This paper proposes a novel framework for training deep convolutional neural networks from noisy labeled datasets that can be obtained cheaply. The problem is formulated using an undirected graphical model that represents the relationship between noisy and clean labels, trained in a semi- supervised setting. In our formulation, the inference over latent clean labels is tractable and is regularized during training using auxiliary sources of information. The proposed model is applied to the image labeling problem and is shown to be effective in labeling unseen images as well as reducing label noise in training on CIFAR-10 and MS COCO datasets.

(03 Nov 2017) https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.00038.pdf 

Trevor Lanting, Andrew D. King, Bram Evert, Emile Hoskinson

"Perturbative anticrossings have long been identified as a potential computational bottleneck for quantum annealing. This bottleneck can appear, for example, when a uniform transverse driver Hamiltonian is applied to each qubit. Previous theoretical research sought to alleviate such anticrossings by adjusting the transverse driver Hamiltonians on individual qubits according to a perturbative approximation. Here we apply this principle to a physical implementation of quantum annealing in a D-Wave 2000Q system. We use samples from the quantum annealing hardware and per-qubit anneal offsets to produce nonuniform driver Hamiltonians. On small instances with severe perturbative anticrossings, our algorithm yields an increase in minimum eigengaps, ground state success probabilities, and escape rates from metastable valleys. We also demonstrate that the same approach can mitigate biased sampling of degenerate ground states."

(10 Aug 2017) https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.03049

“Probabilistic models with discrete latent variables naturally capture datasets composed of discrete classes. However, they are difficult to train efficiently, since back propagation through discrete variables is generally not possible. We introduce a novel class of probabilistic models, comprising an undirected discrete component and a directed hierarchical continuous component, that can be trained efficiently using the variational autoencoder framework. The discrete component captures the distribution over the disconnected smooth manifolds induced by the continuous component. As a result, this class of models efficiently learns both the class of objects in an image, and their specific realization in pixels, from unsupervised data; and outperforms state-of-the-art methods on the permutation-invariant MNIST, OMNIGLOT, and Caltech-101 Silhouettes datasets.”

(7 Sep 2016) http://arxiv.org/abs/1609.02200

Zhengbing Bian, Fabian Chudak, Robert Israel, Brad Lackey, William G. Macready, Aidan Roy

Current quantum annealing (QA) hardware suffers from practical limitations such as finite temperature, sparse connectivity, small qubit numbers, and control error. We propose new algorithms for mapping boolean constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) onto QA hardware mitigating these limitations. In particular we develop a new embedding algorithm for mapping a CSP onto a hardware Ising model with a fixed sparse set of interactions, and propose two new decomposition algorithms for solving problems too large to map directly into hardware.

(10 Mar 2016) http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.03111

Tomas Boothby, Andrew D. King, Aidan Roy

(27 Oct 2015) http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11128-015-1150-6?wt_mc=internal.event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst

A.D.King, T.Lanting, and R.Harris

(3 Sep 2015) http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.02098.pdf

Mohammad H. Amin

(13 Mar 2015) http://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.04216.pdf

Jun Cai, Bill Macready, Aidan Roy

(12 Jun 2014) http://arxiv.org/pdf/1406.2741.pdf

N G Dickson et al. 

"Efforts to develop useful quantum computers have been blocked primarily by environmental noiseHere we examine the environment’s effect on quantum annealing using 16 qubits of a superconducting quantum processor. For a problem instance with an isolated small-gap anticrossing between the lowest two energy levels, we experimentally demonstrate that, even with annealing times eight orders of magnitude longer than the predicted single-qubit decoherence time, the probabilities of performing a successful computation are similar to those expected for a fully coherent system. Moreover, for the problem studied, we show that quantum annealing can take advantage of a thermal environment to achieve a speedup factor of up to 1,000 over a closed system."

Nature Communications, 1903 (May 21 2013) http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/full/ncomms2920.html

M. W. Johnson et al. 

Many interesting but practically intractable problems can be reduced to that of finding the ground state of a system of interacting spins; however, finding such a ground state remains computationally difficult..Here we use quantum annealing to find the ground state of an artificial Ising spin system comprising an array of eight superconducting flux quantum bits with programmable spin–spin couplings. We observe a clear signature of quantum annealing, distinguishable from classical thermal annealing through the temperature dependence of the time at which the system dynamics freezes.

Nature 473, 194-198 (12 May 2011) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7346/full/nature10012.html

Z. Bian et al. 
Link to PDF

R. Harris et al.
Physical Review B 81, 134510 (2010) arXiv:0909.4321

F. Hamze et al
International Journal of Modern Physics C, Volume 21, issue 5 (2010) arXiv:1004.2840

T. Lanting et al.
Phys. Rev. B 82, 060512(R) (2010) arXiv:1006.0028

Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 220401 (2009) arXiv:0810.4335

M. H. S. Amin et al.
Phys. Rev. A 80, 062326 (2009) arXiv:0904.1387