Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cunha, Gilberto, Ramôa, Alexandra, Sequeira, André, de Oliveira, Michael, Barbosa, Luís
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.18606
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909703955546112
author Cunha, Gilberto
Ramôa, Alexandra
Sequeira, André
de Oliveira, Michael
Barbosa, Luís
author_facet Cunha, Gilberto
Ramôa, Alexandra
Sequeira, André
de Oliveira, Michael
Barbosa, Luís
contents Reinforcement learning (RL) provides a principled framework for decision-making in partially observable environments, which can be modeled as Markov decision processes and compactly represented through dynamic decision Bayesian networks. Recent advances demonstrate that inference on sparse Bayesian networks can be accelerated using quantum rejection sampling combined with amplitude amplification, leading to a computational speedup in estimating acceptance probabilities.\\ Building on this result, we introduce Quantum Bayesian Reinforcement Learning (QBRL), a hybrid quantum-classical look-ahead algorithm for model-based RL in partially observable environments. We present a rigorous, oracle-free time complexity analysis under fault-tolerant assumptions for the quantum device. Unlike standard treatments that assume a black-box oracle, we explicitly specify the inference process, allowing our bounds to more accurately reflect the true computational cost. We show that, for environments whose dynamics form a sparse Bayesian network, horizon-based near-optimal planning can be achieved sub-quadratically faster through quantum-enhanced belief updates. Furthermore, we present numerical experiments benchmarking QBRL against its classical counterpart on simple yet illustrative decision-making tasks. Our results offer a detailed analysis of how the quantum computational advantage translates into decision-making performance, highlighting that the magnitude of the advantage can vary significantly across different deployment settings.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_18606
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for near-optimal planning in POMDPs
Cunha, Gilberto
Ramôa, Alexandra
Sequeira, André
de Oliveira, Michael
Barbosa, Luís
Quantum Physics
Machine Learning
Reinforcement learning (RL) provides a principled framework for decision-making in partially observable environments, which can be modeled as Markov decision processes and compactly represented through dynamic decision Bayesian networks. Recent advances demonstrate that inference on sparse Bayesian networks can be accelerated using quantum rejection sampling combined with amplitude amplification, leading to a computational speedup in estimating acceptance probabilities.\\ Building on this result, we introduce Quantum Bayesian Reinforcement Learning (QBRL), a hybrid quantum-classical look-ahead algorithm for model-based RL in partially observable environments. We present a rigorous, oracle-free time complexity analysis under fault-tolerant assumptions for the quantum device. Unlike standard treatments that assume a black-box oracle, we explicitly specify the inference process, allowing our bounds to more accurately reflect the true computational cost. We show that, for environments whose dynamics form a sparse Bayesian network, horizon-based near-optimal planning can be achieved sub-quadratically faster through quantum-enhanced belief updates. Furthermore, we present numerical experiments benchmarking QBRL against its classical counterpart on simple yet illustrative decision-making tasks. Our results offer a detailed analysis of how the quantum computational advantage translates into decision-making performance, highlighting that the magnitude of the advantage can vary significantly across different deployment settings.
title Hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for near-optimal planning in POMDPs
topic Quantum Physics
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.18606