# Watermarking of Quantum Circuits

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.01484 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.01484/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 2 Sep 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Q-Tag: Watermarking Quantum Circuit Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.23085/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Quantum circuits constitute Intellectual Property (IP) of the quantum developers and users, which needs to be protected from theft by adversarial agents, e.g., the quantum cloud provider or a rogue adversary present in the cloud. This necessitates the exploration of low-overhead techniques applicable to near-term quantum devices, to trace the quantum circuits/algorithmstextquotesingle IP and their output. We present two such lightweight watermarking techniques to prove ownership in the event of an adversary cloning the circuit design. For the first technique, a rotation gate is placed on ancilla qubits combined with other gate(s) at the output of the circuit. For the second method, a set of random gates are inserted in the middle of the circuit followed by its inverse, separated from the circuit by a barrier. These models are combined and applied on benchmark circuits, and the circuit depth, 2-qubit gate count, probability of successful trials (PST), and probabilistic proof of authorship (PPA) are compared against the state-of-the-art. The PST is reduced by a minuscule 0.53% against the non-watermarked benchmarks and is up to 22.69% higher compared to existing techniques. The circuit depth has been reduced by up to 27.7% as against the state-of-the-art. The PPA is astronomically smaller than existing watermarks.