End-to-End Decision Focused Learning using Learned Solvers

Achieving fusion of deep learning with combinatorial algorithms promises transformativechanges to AI. Creating an impact in a real-world setting requires AI techniques to span a pipeline from data, to predictive models, to decisions. Aligning these components together requires careful consideration, as having these components trained separately does not account for the end goal of the model. This work surveys general frameworks for melding these components, we focus on the integration of optimization methods with machine learning architectures. We address some challenges and limitations associated with these methods and propose a novel approach to address some of the bottlenecks that arise

Optimization methods for electric power systems: An overview

Power systems optimization problems are very difficult to solve because power systems are very large, complex, geographically widely distributed and are influenced by many unexpected events. It is therefore necessary to employ most efficient optimization methods to take full advantages in simplifying the formulation and implementation of the problem. This article presents an overview of important mathematical optimization and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques used in power optimization problems. Applications of hybrid AI techniques have also been discussed in this article

Design of General Purpose Minimal-Auxiliary Ising Machines

Ising machines are a form of quantum-inspired processing-in-memory computer which has shown great promise for overcoming the limitations of traditional computing paradigms while operating at a fraction of the energy use. The process of designing Ising machines is known as the reverse Ising problem. Unfortunately, this problem is in general computationally intractable: it is a nonconvex mixed-integer linear programming problem which cannot be naively brute-forced except in the simplest cases due to exponential scaling of runtime with number of spins. We prove new theoretical results which allow us to reduce the search space to one with quadratic scaling. We utilize this theory to develop general purpose algorithmic solutions to the reverse Ising problem. In particular, we demonstrate Ising formulations of 3-bit and 4-bit integer multiplication which use fewer total spins than previously known methods by a factor of more than three. Our results increase the practicality of implementing such circuits on modern Ising hardware, where spins are at a premium.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, submitted to IEEE International Conference on Rebooting Computing 202

Analog Photonics Computing for Information Processing, Inference and Optimisation

This review presents an overview of the current state-of-the-art in photonics computing, which leverages photons, photons coupled with matter, and optics-related technologies for effective and efficient computational purposes. It covers the history and development of photonics computing and modern analogue computing platforms and architectures, focusing on optimization tasks and neural network implementations. The authors examine special-purpose optimizers, mathematical descriptions of photonics optimizers, and their various interconnections. Disparate applications are discussed, including direct encoding, logistics, finance, phase retrieval, machine learning, neural networks, probabilistic graphical models, and image processing, among many others. The main directions of technological advancement and associated challenges in photonics computing are explored, along with an assessment of its efficiency. Finally, the paper discusses prospects and the field of optical quantum computing, providing insights into the potential applications of this technology.Comment: Invited submission by Journal of Advanced Quantum Technologies; accepted version 5/06/202