A Comprehensive Analysis of Accuracy and Robustness in Quantum Neural Networks

TL;DR

This paper compares the performance and robustness of three quantum neural network architectures, revealing their strengths and weaknesses across datasets and noise conditions, with implications for NISQ-era quantum machine learning.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive evaluation of QCNN, QRNN, and QViT architectures, highlighting their performance gaps and robustness traits in practical quantum machine learning scenarios.

Findings

Models perform well on low-feature datasets like MNIST.

High-dimensional data reduces learning efficacy across models.

Transformer-based models show robustness against quantum noise.

Abstract

Quantum Machine Learning (QML) has recently emerged as a highly promising research frontier. Within this domain, Quantum Neural Networks (QNNs),characterized by Variational Quantum Circuits (VQCs) at their core and featuring layers of quantum gates optimized by classical algorithms, have garnered significant attention. However, a rigorous and exhaustive evaluation of their practical performance remains largely incomplete. In this study, we conduct a comprehensive comparative analysis of three prominent hybrid classical-quantum architectures: Quantum Convolutional Neural Networks (QCNN), Quantum Recurrent Neural Networks (QRNN), and Quantum Vision Transformers (QViT), focusing on the critical dimensions of generalization, accuracy, and robustness. Our findings provide novel insights that address previous evaluative gaps. Notably, while these models exhibit exceptional performance on low-feature datasets such as MNIST, their learning efficacy degrades significantly when transitioned to high-feature datasets. Furthermore, convolutional-based models like QCNN appear less effective on high-dimensional data than other machine learning architectures. Additionally, while all models are susceptible to adversarial noise, traditional architectures, such as recurrent and convolutional networks, demonstrate superior resilience. Conversely, in the presence of quantum noise, the transformer-based architecture proves its strength by maintaining high robustness against measurement noise, channel noise, and finite-shot effects, whereas other architectures suffer marked performance declines. These results provide a granular perspective on the current state of the field and underscore the critical importance of tailoring model selection to the constraints of contemporary Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) environments.