6–11 Dec 2026
Stellenbosch University
Africa/Johannesburg timezone

Local tensor-train surrogates for quantum learning models

Not scheduled
20m
Jan Mouton Learning Centre (Stellenbosch University)

Jan Mouton Learning Centre

Stellenbosch University

Poster

Speaker

Sreeraj Rajindran Nair (University of Technology Sydney (UTS))

Description

A key bottleneck in quantum machine learning is the computational cost of repeated quantum circuit evaluations during the inference phase. To address this, we present a framework for constructing fast, cheap, provably accurate classical tensor-train surrogates of fully trained quantum machine learning models within local patches of their input data space. The approach combines Taylor polynomial approximation with a tensor-train (TT) representation and embeds it in a statistical learning paradigm via empirical risk minimization. In our analysis, the Taylor-TT construction serves as a deterministic error certificate proving that the TT hypothesis class contains a good approximation; empirical risk minimization then provably recovers a surrogate with controlled generalization error and explicit bounds. This translates into three independently controllable error sources: (i) Taylor truncation error controlled by the patch radius $r$ and polynomial degree $p$, (ii) TT approximation error controlled by the bond dimension $\chi$, and (iii) statistical estimation error. While the parameter count scales polynomially in the number of data dimensions $N$, i.e., $\deff = N(p+1)\chi^2$ rather than the naive $(p+1)^N$, the worst-case constants inherit an exponential factor through the tensor-product feature norm during Taylor polynomial embedding onto TT. This cleanly separates representation complexity from feature-induced constants. Our risk bounds and sample complexity depend explicitly on the local patch radius $r$.

Topic Tensor methods and quantum-inspired machine learning
Additional Topic Hybrid quantum-classical approaches for learning and optimization

Authors

Dr Christopher Ferrie (University of Technology Sydney (UTS)) Sreeraj Rajindran Nair (University of Technology Sydney (UTS))

Presentation materials