Do We Really Need Quantum Machine Learning?: A Multidimensional Empirical Study

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Vhaduri, Sudip, Gammon, Ryan, Dibbo, Sayanton
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Vhaduri, Sudip
Gammon, Ryan
Dibbo, Sayanton
author_facet Vhaduri, Sudip
Gammon, Ryan
Dibbo, Sayanton
contents The rapid growth of computer vision and increasingly complex image recognition tasks has exposed fundamental computational limitations of classical machine learning models, motivating the exploration of quantum computing as an emerging new paradigm. This paper presents a comprehensive benchmarking study of classical and quantum machine learning models for image recognition on the MNIST handwritten digit dataset, evaluating both traditional models, a Classical Support Vector Machine (CSVM) and a Quantum Support Vector Machine (QSVM), and deep neural network models, a Classical Convolutional Neural Network (CCNN) and a Quantum Convolutional Neural Network (QCNN), across four performance dimensions: classification accuracy, computational runtime, parameter count, and memory requirements. Experiments are conducted as functions of both feature dimensionality and sample size, and across CPU and GPU execution environments, providing a controlled, multidimensional comparison to address gaps in prior work. For the SVM-based models, QSVM consistently outperforms CSVM in accuracy, reaching $\sim$ 0.90 versus $\sim$ 0.85 at 1,000 samples, with a higher computational cost. A feature count of 10 qubits and a sample size in the range of 200 -- 500 emerge as practical operating points that balance accuracy and runtime. For the neural network models, CCNN and QCNN achieve comparable classification accuracy, both exceeding 0.96 at 64 features and 60,000 samples, yet QCNN offers substantially superior parameter and memory efficiency, requiring $\sim$ 94\% fewer parameters and $\sim$ 75\% less memory than CCNN at higher feature counts, while incurring higher runtime. Across both model families, quantum models consistently outperform classical models by greater margins in accuracy as feature dimensionality or sample size increases.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_27923
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Do We Really Need Quantum Machine Learning?: A Multidimensional Empirical Study
Vhaduri, Sudip
Gammon, Ryan
Dibbo, Sayanton
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Quantum Physics
The rapid growth of computer vision and increasingly complex image recognition tasks has exposed fundamental computational limitations of classical machine learning models, motivating the exploration of quantum computing as an emerging new paradigm. This paper presents a comprehensive benchmarking study of classical and quantum machine learning models for image recognition on the MNIST handwritten digit dataset, evaluating both traditional models, a Classical Support Vector Machine (CSVM) and a Quantum Support Vector Machine (QSVM), and deep neural network models, a Classical Convolutional Neural Network (CCNN) and a Quantum Convolutional Neural Network (QCNN), across four performance dimensions: classification accuracy, computational runtime, parameter count, and memory requirements. Experiments are conducted as functions of both feature dimensionality and sample size, and across CPU and GPU execution environments, providing a controlled, multidimensional comparison to address gaps in prior work. For the SVM-based models, QSVM consistently outperforms CSVM in accuracy, reaching $\sim$ 0.90 versus $\sim$ 0.85 at 1,000 samples, with a higher computational cost. A feature count of 10 qubits and a sample size in the range of 200 -- 500 emerge as practical operating points that balance accuracy and runtime. For the neural network models, CCNN and QCNN achieve comparable classification accuracy, both exceeding 0.96 at 64 features and 60,000 samples, yet QCNN offers substantially superior parameter and memory efficiency, requiring $\sim$ 94\% fewer parameters and $\sim$ 75\% less memory than CCNN at higher feature counts, while incurring higher runtime. Across both model families, quantum models consistently outperform classical models by greater margins in accuracy as feature dimensionality or sample size increases.
title Do We Really Need Quantum Machine Learning?: A Multidimensional Empirical Study
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.27923