Photonic Quantum-Enhanced Knowledge Distillation

Photonic quantum processors naturally produce intrinsically stochastic measurement outcomes, offering a hardware-native source of structured randomness that can be exploited during machine-learning training. Here we introduce Photonic Quantum-Enhanced Knowledge Distillation (PQKD), a hybrid quantum photonic--classical framework in which a programmable photonic circuit generates a compact conditioning signal that constrains and guides a parameter-efficient student network during distillation from a high-capacity teacher. PQKD replaces fully trainable convolutional kernels with dictionary convolutions: each layer learns only a small set of shared spatial basis filters, while sample-dependent channel-mixing weights are derived from shot-limited photonic features and mapped through a fixed linear transform. Training alternates between standard gradient-based optimisation of the student and sampling-robust, gradient-free updates of photonic parameters, avoiding differentiation through photonic hardware. Across MNIST, Fashion-MNIST and CIFAR-10, PQKD traces a controllable compression--accuracy frontier, remaining close to teacher performance on simpler benchmarks under aggressive convolutional compression. Performance degrades predictably with finite sampling, consistent with shot-noise scaling, and exponential moving-average feature smoothing suppresses high-frequency shot-noise fluctuations, extending the practical operating regime at moderate shot budgets.

Quantum-Enhanced Parameter-Efficient Learning for Typhoon Trajectory Forecasting

Typhoon trajectory forecasting is essential for disaster preparedness but remains computationally demanding due to the complexity of atmospheric dynamics and the resource requirements of deep learning models. Quantum-Train (QT), a hybrid quantum-classical framework that leverages quantum neural networks (QNNs) to generate trainable parameters exclusively during training, eliminating the need for quantum hardware at inference time. Building on QT's success across multiple domains, including image classification, reinforcement learning, flood prediction, and large language model (LLM) fine-tuning, we introduce Quantum Parameter Adaptation (QPA) for efficient typhoon forecasting model learning. Integrated with an Attention-based Multi-ConvGRU model, QPA enables parameter-efficient training while maintaining predictive accuracy. This work represents the first application of quantum machine learning (QML) to large-scale typhoon trajectory prediction, offering a scalable and energy-efficient approach to climate modeling. Our results demonstrate that QPA significantly reduces the number of trainable parameters while preserving performance, making high-performance forecasting more accessible and sustainable through hybrid quantum-classical learning.

Learning to Learn with Quantum Optimization via Quantum Neural Networks

Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithms (QAOA) promise efficient solutions to classically intractable combinatorial optimization problems by harnessing shallow-depth quantum circuits. Yet, their performance and scalability often hinge on effective parameter optimization, which remains nontrivial due to rugged energy landscapes and hardware noise. In this work, we introduce a quantum meta-learning framework that combines quantum neural networks, specifically Quantum Long Short-Term Memory (QLSTM) architectures, with QAOA. By training the QLSTM optimizer on smaller graph instances, our approach rapidly generalizes to larger, more complex problems, substantially reducing the number of iterations required for convergence. Through comprehensive benchmarks on Max-Cut and Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model instances, we demonstrate that QLSTM-based optimizers converge faster and achieve higher approximation ratios compared to classical baselines, thereby offering a robust pathway toward scalable quantum optimization in the NISQ era.