Machine learningVariational Algorithm

Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm

The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) is a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm designed to solve combinatorial optimization problems on near-term quantum devices. Introduced by Farhi, Goldstone, and Gutmann in 2014, QAOA encodes optimization problems into quantum circuits and uses classical optimization to tune circuit parameters, aiming to find approximately optimal solutions for problems like MaxCut, graph coloring, and scheduling.

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Sources

  1. Farhi, E., Goldstone, J., Gutmann, S. (2014). A quantum approximate optimization algorithm. arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.4028. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.1411.4028
  2. Zhou, L., Wang, S. T., Choi, S., et al. (2020). Quantum approximate optimization algorithm: Performance, mechanism, and implementation on near-term devices. Physical Review X, 10, 021067. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.10.021067
  3. Hadfield, S., Wang, Z., O'Gorman, B., et al. (2019). From the Ising model to QAOA: A quantum optimization algorithm from the physicist's perspective. Algorithms, 12, 34. DOI: 10.3390/a12020034

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Referenced by

ScholarGateQuantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA)). Retrieved 2026-06-04 from https://scholargate.app/en/quantum-computing/quantum-approximate-optimization-algorithm