Hybrid quantum neural networks show strongly reduced need for free parameters in entity matching

Abstract Modern technology and scientific experiments increasingly generate larger and larger amounts of data. This data is sometimes redundant, incomplete or inaccurate and needs to be cleaned and merged with other data before becoming useful for scientific exploration. Hence, entity matching, i.e....

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Main Authors: Lukas Bischof, Stefan Teodoropol, Rudolf M. Füchslin, Kurt Stockinger
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2025-02-01
Series:Scientific Reports
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-88177-z
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author Lukas Bischof
Stefan Teodoropol
Rudolf M. Füchslin
Kurt Stockinger
author_facet Lukas Bischof
Stefan Teodoropol
Rudolf M. Füchslin
Kurt Stockinger
author_sort Lukas Bischof
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Modern technology and scientific experiments increasingly generate larger and larger amounts of data. This data is sometimes redundant, incomplete or inaccurate and needs to be cleaned and merged with other data before becoming useful for scientific exploration. Hence, entity matching, i.e. the process of linking data about a given entity gathered from multiple data sets, is a major problem in artificial intelligence with applications in science and industry. Typical methods for entity matching either use specialized algorithms or supervised machine learning. Although the problem has been well studied on classical computers, it is unclear how quantum approaches would tackle these challenges. In this paper, we evaluate quantum machine learning algorithms for entity matching on a hand-crafted data set and compare them to similar classical algorithms. We do this by implementing a neural network with a classical embedding layer and extending it with quantum layers. Our experimental results suggest that our hybrid quantum neural network reaches similar performance as classical approaches while requiring an order of magnitude fewer parameters than its classical counterpart. Furthermore, we also show that a model trained on a quantum simulator is portable and thus transferable to a real quantum computer. From a practical perspective and as long as quantum hardware is a scarce resource, experiments, e.g. addressing performance, can profit from producing good initial configurations for quantum neural networks via a simulator, thus only leaving the fine-tuning to quantum computations.
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spelling doaj-art-c56a92fea10f41d8890c51f059aa1b1a2025-02-09T12:30:23ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222025-02-0115111510.1038/s41598-025-88177-zHybrid quantum neural networks show strongly reduced need for free parameters in entity matchingLukas Bischof0Stefan Teodoropol1Rudolf M. Füchslin2Kurt Stockinger3Zurich University of Applied SciencesZurich University of Applied SciencesZurich University of Applied SciencesZurich University of Applied SciencesAbstract Modern technology and scientific experiments increasingly generate larger and larger amounts of data. This data is sometimes redundant, incomplete or inaccurate and needs to be cleaned and merged with other data before becoming useful for scientific exploration. Hence, entity matching, i.e. the process of linking data about a given entity gathered from multiple data sets, is a major problem in artificial intelligence with applications in science and industry. Typical methods for entity matching either use specialized algorithms or supervised machine learning. Although the problem has been well studied on classical computers, it is unclear how quantum approaches would tackle these challenges. In this paper, we evaluate quantum machine learning algorithms for entity matching on a hand-crafted data set and compare them to similar classical algorithms. We do this by implementing a neural network with a classical embedding layer and extending it with quantum layers. Our experimental results suggest that our hybrid quantum neural network reaches similar performance as classical approaches while requiring an order of magnitude fewer parameters than its classical counterpart. Furthermore, we also show that a model trained on a quantum simulator is portable and thus transferable to a real quantum computer. From a practical perspective and as long as quantum hardware is a scarce resource, experiments, e.g. addressing performance, can profit from producing good initial configurations for quantum neural networks via a simulator, thus only leaving the fine-tuning to quantum computations.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-88177-zQuantum computingEntity matchingExperimental evaluation
spellingShingle Lukas Bischof
Stefan Teodoropol
Rudolf M. Füchslin
Kurt Stockinger
Hybrid quantum neural networks show strongly reduced need for free parameters in entity matching
Scientific Reports
Quantum computing
Entity matching
Experimental evaluation
title Hybrid quantum neural networks show strongly reduced need for free parameters in entity matching
title_full Hybrid quantum neural networks show strongly reduced need for free parameters in entity matching
title_fullStr Hybrid quantum neural networks show strongly reduced need for free parameters in entity matching
title_full_unstemmed Hybrid quantum neural networks show strongly reduced need for free parameters in entity matching
title_short Hybrid quantum neural networks show strongly reduced need for free parameters in entity matching
title_sort hybrid quantum neural networks show strongly reduced need for free parameters in entity matching
topic Quantum computing
Entity matching
Experimental evaluation
url https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-88177-z
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AT kurtstockinger hybridquantumneuralnetworksshowstronglyreducedneedforfreeparametersinentitymatching