SAMOP 2021 – scientific programme

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QI: Fachverband Quanteninformation

QI 2: Quantum Computing and Algorithms I

QI 2.1: Talk

Monday, September 20, 2021, 10:45–11:00, H5

Training variational quantum algorithms is NP-hard — •Lennart Bittel and Martin Kliesch — Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Deutschland

Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) are proposed to solve relevant computational problems on near term quantum devices. Popular versions are variational quantum eigensolvers (VQEs) and quantum approximate optimization algorithms (QAOAs) that solve ground state problems from quantum chemistry and binary optimization problems, respectively. They are based on the idea to use a classical computer to train a parameterized quantum circuit. We show that the corresponding classical optimization problems are NP-hard. Moreover, the hardness is robust in the sense that for every polynomial time algorithm, there exists instances for which the relative error resulting from the classical optimization problem can be arbitrarily large, assuming P =/= NP. Even for classically tractable systems, composed of only logarithmically many qubits or free fermions, we show that the optimization is NP-hard. This elucidates that the classical optimization is intrinsically hard and does not merely inherit the hardness from the ground state problem. Our analysis shows that the training landscape can have many far from optimal persistent local minima. This means gradient and higher order decent algorithms will generally converge to far from optimal solutions.