Simulation of memristive synapses and neuromorphic computing on a quantum computer

Abstract

One of the major approaches to neuromorphic computing is using memristors as analogue synapses. We propose unitary quantum gates that exhibit memristive behaviours, including Ohm's law, pinched hysteresis loop and synaptic plasticity. Hysteresis depending on the quantum phase and long-term plasticity that encodes the quantum state are observed. We also propose a three-layer neural network with the capability of universal quantum computing. Quantum state classification on the memristive neural network is demonstrated. Our results pave the way towards brain-inspired quantum computing. We obtain these results in numerical simulations and experiments on the superconducting quantum computer ibmq_vigo.