Expressive quantum perceptrons for quantum neuromorphic computing

Quantum neuromorphic computing (QNC) is a sub-field of quantum machine learning (QML) that capitalizes on inherent system dynamics. As a result, QNC can run on contemporary, noisy quantum hardware and is poised to realize challenging algorithms in the near term. One key issue in QNC is the characterization of the requisite dynamics for ensuring expressive quantum neuromorphic computation. We address this issue by adapting previous proposals of quantum perceptrons (QPs), a quantum version of a simplistic model for neural computation, to the QNC setting. Our QPs compute based on the analog dynamics of interacting qubits with tunable coupling constants. We show that QPs are, with restricted resources, a quantum equivalent to the classical perceptron, a simple mathematical model for a neuron that is the building block of various machine learning architectures. Moreover, we show that QPs are theoretically capable of producing any unitary operation. Thus, QPs are computationally more expressive than their classical counterparts. As a result, QNC architectures built using our QPs are, theoretically, universal. We introduce a technique for mitigating barren plateaus in QPs called entanglement thinning. We demonstrate QPs’ effectiveness by applying them to numerous QML problems, including calculating the inner products between quantum states, energy measurements, and time reversal. Finally, we discuss potential implementations of QPs and how they can be used to build more complex QNC architectures such as quantum reservoir computers.