-- Separate experiments, each of over 100 sentences, provide a strong proof of 
concept that Quantum Natural Language Processing is within reach


Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) announces the publication of a research paper 
on the online pre-print repository arxiv (available here 
(https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.12846.pdf )) that provides details of the largest 
ever experimental implementation of Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks on 
a quantum computer.

Titled "QNLP in Practice: Running Compositional Models of Meaning on a Quantum 
Computer," the paper presents the first "medium-scale" implementation of common 
NLP tasks. Completed on an IBM quantum computer, the experiment, which 
instantiated sentences as parameterised quantum circuits, embeds word meanings 
as quantum states which are "entangled" according to the grammatical structure 
of the sentence. 

The paper builds on prior proof-of-concept work (see here 
(https://arxiv.org/pdf/2012.03756.pdf ) for the previous experiment) and, 
significantly, achieves convergence for the far larger datasets that are 
employed here. One of the objectives of the CQC team is to describe Quantum 
Natural Language Processing (QNLP) and their results in a way that is 
accessible to NLP researchers and practitioners thus paving the way for the NLP 
community to engage with a quantum encoding of language processing.

Bob Coecke, CQC's Chief Scientist and also the Head of CQC's QNLP project, 
commented, "We are working on an immensely ambitious project at CQC that is 
aimed at utilising quantum computers, as they scale, to move beyond expensive 
black-box mechanisms for NLP to a paradigm where we become more effective, more 
accurate and more scalable in an area of computer science that epitomises 
artificial intelligence. Having made considerable progress already on our 
'quantum-native' brand of compositional NLP, we are now moving beyond our 
initial research and working on applications that can be developed in synch 
with timelines provided by quantum computing hardware companies such as IBM, 
Honeywell, Google and others." 

He added, "Equally, at a time when quantum computing is becoming a topic of 
general interest it is imperative that those of us who are working within this 
sector provide results that are verifiable. Our record of publication at CQC 
strives at all times to meet these exacting standards – we are science led and 
enterprise driven."

About CQC 

Founded in 2014 and backed by some of the world's leading quantum computing 
companies, CQC is a global leader in quantum software and quantum algorithms, 
enabling clients to achieve the most out of rapidly evolving quantum computing 
hardware. CQC has offices in the UK, USA and Japan with a team of 140 
professionals. For more information, visit CQC at 
http://www.cambridgequantum.com and on LinkedIn 
(https://www.linkedin.com/company/21661539/admin/ ). Access the tket Python 
module on GitHub (https://cqcl.github.io/pytket/build/html/index.html ).

SOURCE  Cambridge Quantum Computing