A Review of Procedure to Evolve Quantum Procedures

TL;DR

This paper reviews the use of evolutionary algorithms to automatically generate quantum algorithms, highlighting the potential and challenges of evolving quantum procedures despite current limitations in quantum hardware.

Contribution

It provides an introductory overview of quantum and evolutionary algorithms and reviews the emerging field of evolving quantum algorithms using evolutionary methods.

Findings

Early research shows promise in evolving quantum algorithms.

Quantum simulation on classical computers is computationally expensive.

Using evolutionary algorithms offers a potential pathway for quantum algorithm discovery.

Abstract

There exist quantum algorithms that are more efficient than their classical counterparts; such algorithms were invented by Shor in 1994 and then Grover in 1996. A lack of invention since Grover's algorithm has been commonly attributed to the non-intuitive nature of quantum algorithms to the classically trained person. Thus, the idea of using computers to automatically generate quantum algorithms based on an evolutionary model emerged. A limitation of this approach is that quantum computers do not yet exist and quantum simulation on a classical machine has an exponential order overhead. Nevertheless, early research into evolving quantum algorithms has shown promise. This paper provides an introduction into quantum and evolutionary algorithms for the computer scientist not familiar with these fields. The exciting field of using evolutionary algorithms to evolve quantum algorithms is then reviewed.