Machine learning applied to programming quantum computers

Abstract

We apply machine learning to “program” quantum computers, both in simulation and in experimental hardware. A major difficulty in quantum computing is developing effective algorithms that can be programmed on a quantum device. Our approach is to apply machine learning to learn the quantum computer parameters that will yield the desired computation instead of choosing pre-made quantum gates to do the processing. As a proof of concept, we apply machine learning to a 16 qubit quantum gate computer developed by IBM and to a topological quantum computer by Microsoft. Preliminary results are shown of machine learning results both in software simulation and on the actual IBM quantum hardware. Microsoft results are shown only using their simulation as hardware is still being built. A second demonstration is to then port quantum machine learning to a large SQUID array of 2000 qubits originally designed to solve binary optimization problems via quantum annealing. To demonstrate quantum machine learning on this larger scale, it is programmed via machine learning to anneal to various entangled and partially entangled states; investigating a basic building block of general quantum computing. Simulation results are presented along with a method to demonstrate in hardware on a superconducting flux qubit quantum annealing machine housed at the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL) at NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing facility. Targeted entangled states are the relatively easy GHZ states, the EPR as well as the more difficult W and other states. Using machine learning instead of programming paves the way to greatly expanding the quantum computing capabilities of quantum computing hardware currently available.