From Quantum Picturalism to Quantum NLP: Interpretable, Scalable, and Exponential Advantage
Thursday, August 6, 2026 at 11:30 AM to 11:50 AM · 20 min. (US/Pacific)
Delfino Ballroom 4103
Solo Talk
Quantum AI (Technical)
Information
Quantum and natural language share the same structure! Here's the story.
Over some 20 years we have developed a diagrammatic quantum formalism, referred to as quantum picturalism [1, 2]. We showed that this formalism enabled secondary school students to perform exceptionally well on an Oxford University post-grad quantum exam [3]. This quest started when in 1935 John von Neumann denounced `his own’ Hilbert space based quantum formalism. Quantum picturalism on the other hand, is now widespread in quantum technology research.
A remarkable fact is that in its pictorial form, composition of quantum systems shares the same structure as natural language. This resulted in the birth of Quantum NLP [4]. In more recent work, we demonstrated exponential advantage, interpretability, and scalability of Quantum NLP [5]. In fact, interpretability and scalability can also be achieved when adopting a quantum-inspired approach on classical hardware.
The same formalism has also been used the generate the 1st piece of music with a quantum computer [5].
MEDIA REFERENCES:
[1] Bob Coecke and Aleks Kissinger (2017) Picturing Quantum Processes. Cambridge University Press.
[2] Bob Coecke and Stefano Gogioso (2022) Quantum in Pictures. Quantinuum.
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/16/physicist-bob-coecke-its-easier-to-convince-kids-than-adults-about-quantum-mechanics
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2021/10/13/cambridge-quantum-makes-quantum-natural-language-processing-a-reality/
[5] https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/09/18/quantinuum-unveils-first-contribution-toward-responsible-ai-uniting-power-of-its-quantum-processors-with-experimental-work-on-integrating-classical-quantum-computing/
[6] https://qspace.fqxi.org/articles/264/quanthovens-fifth
Over some 20 years we have developed a diagrammatic quantum formalism, referred to as quantum picturalism [1, 2]. We showed that this formalism enabled secondary school students to perform exceptionally well on an Oxford University post-grad quantum exam [3]. This quest started when in 1935 John von Neumann denounced `his own’ Hilbert space based quantum formalism. Quantum picturalism on the other hand, is now widespread in quantum technology research.
A remarkable fact is that in its pictorial form, composition of quantum systems shares the same structure as natural language. This resulted in the birth of Quantum NLP [4]. In more recent work, we demonstrated exponential advantage, interpretability, and scalability of Quantum NLP [5]. In fact, interpretability and scalability can also be achieved when adopting a quantum-inspired approach on classical hardware.
The same formalism has also been used the generate the 1st piece of music with a quantum computer [5].
MEDIA REFERENCES:
[1] Bob Coecke and Aleks Kissinger (2017) Picturing Quantum Processes. Cambridge University Press.
[2] Bob Coecke and Stefano Gogioso (2022) Quantum in Pictures. Quantinuum.
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/16/physicist-bob-coecke-its-easier-to-convince-kids-than-adults-about-quantum-mechanics
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2021/10/13/cambridge-quantum-makes-quantum-natural-language-processing-a-reality/
[5] https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/09/18/quantinuum-unveils-first-contribution-toward-responsible-ai-uniting-power-of-its-quantum-processors-with-experimental-work-on-integrating-classical-quantum-computing/
[6] https://qspace.fqxi.org/articles/264/quanthovens-fifth
Technical Tracks
Quantum AI (Technical)
