Fully tensorial approach to hypercomplex-valued neural networks

Abstract

A fully tensorial theoretical framework for hypercomplex-valued neural networks is presented. The proposed approach enables neural network architectures to operate on data defined over arbitrary finite-dimensional algebras. The central observation is that algebra multiplication can be represented by a rank-three tensor, which allows all algebraic operations in neural network layers to be formulated in terms of standard tensor contractions, permutations, and reshaping operations. This tensor-based formulation provides a unified and dimension-independent description of hypercomplex-valued dense and convolutional layers and is directly compatible with modern deep learning libraries supporting optimized tensor operations. The proposed framework recovers existing constructions for four-dimensional algebras as a special case. Within this setting, a tensor-based version of the universal approximation theorem for single-layer hypercomplex-valued perceptrons is established under mild non-degeneracy assumptions on the underlying algebra, thereby providing a rigorous theoretical foundation for the considered class of neural networks.