# Simulating a perceptron on a quantum computer

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.3635 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.3635/

## Key facts

- Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 11 Dec 2014.

## Built on by (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [A Hybrid Quantum-Classical Neural Network Architecture for Binary Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.01820/) (2022)
- [A Leap among Quantum Computing and Quantum Neural Networks: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03313/) (2021)
- [Quantum Perceptron Revisited: Computational-Statistical Tradeoffs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.02496/) (2021)
- [Quantum neural networks force fields generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.04666/) (2022)
- [The Quantum Path Kernel: a Generalized Quantum Neural Tangent Kernel for Deep Quantum Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.11826/) (2022)
- [Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm applied to the binary perceptron](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10219/) (2021)
- [Post-variational quantum neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10560/) (2023)
- [Efficient Quantum Circuits for Machine Learning Activation Functions including Constant T-depth ReLU](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06059/) (2024)
- [Regression and Classification with Single-Qubit Quantum Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.09486/) (2024)
- [Hybrid Classical-Quantum Transfer Learning with Noisy Quantum Circuits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16973/) (2026)
- [Quantum version of the k-NN classifier based on a quantum sorting algorithm](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.03761/) (2022)
- [A note on the complex and bicomplex valued neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.02354/) (2022)
- [Parallel Proportional Fusion of Spiking Quantum Neural Network for Optimizing Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01359/) (2024)
- [Implementing An Artificial Quantum Perceptron](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.02083/) (2024)
- [Selective Feature Re-Encoded Quantum Convolutional Neural Network with Joint Optimization for Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02086/) (2025)
- [Stochastic Neural Networks for Quantum Devices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.22241/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Perceptrons are the basic computational unit of artificial neural networks, as they model the activation mechanism of an output neuron due to incoming signals from its neighbours. As linear classifiers, they play an important role in the foundations of machine learning. In the context of the emerging field of quantum machine learning, several attempts have been made to develop a corresponding unit using quantum information theory. Based on the quantum phase estimation algorithm, this paper introduces a quantum perceptron model imitating the step-activation function of a classical perceptron. This scheme requires resources in O(n) (where n is the size of the input) and promises efficient applications for more complex structures such as trainable quantum neural networks.