Evolutionary Algorithms and Quantum Computing: Recent Advances, Opportunities, and Challenges

Quantum computers have made significant progress in the last two decades showing great potential in tackling some of the most challenging problems in computing. This ongoing progress creates an opportunity to implement and evaluate quantum-inspired metaheuristics on real quantum devices, with the aim of uncovering potential computational advantages. Additionally, the practical constraints associated with current quantum computers have highlighted a critical need for classical heuristic methods to optimize the tunable parameters of quantum circuits. Nature-inspired metaheuristics have emerged as promising candidates for fulfilling this optimization role. In this paper, we discuss both of these potential directions at the intersection of evolutionary computing and quantum computing while surveying some of the most promising advancements in these directions. We start with the review of quantum-inspired metaheuristics and then explore implementations of some of these quantum-inspired algorithms on physical quantum devices, capitalizing on the progress in quantum computing technology. Furthermore, we investigate the role of nature-inspired metaheuristics in enhancing the performance of noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers by fine-tuning their parameters. Finally, we discuss some of the recent progress at the intersection of both computing frameworks to highlight the current status and potential of the currently available quantum computing hardware. Synergies between these two computing frameworks demonstrate the potential of a strongly symbiotic relation that can contribute to the simultaneous advancements in both of these computing paradigms.