Quantum computing is powerful because unitary operators describing the time-evolution of a quantum system have exponential size in terms of the number of qubits present in the system. We develop a new "Singular value transformation" algorithm capable of harnessing this exponential advantage, that can apply polynomial transformations to the singular values of a block of a unitary, generalizing the optimal Hamiltonian simulation results of Low and Chuang [LC17a]. The proposed quantum circuits have a very simple structure, often give rise to optimal algorithms and have appealing constant factors, while typically only use a constant number of ancilla qubits.We show that singular value transformation leads to novel algorithms. We give an efficient solution to a "non-commutative" measurement problem used for efficient ground-state-preparation of certain local Hamiltonians, and propose a new method for singular value estimation. We also show how to exponentially improve the complexity of implementing fractional queries to unitaries with a gapped spectrum. Finally, as a quantum machine learning application we show how to efficiently implement principal component regression."Singular value transformation" is conceptually simple and efficient, and leads to a unified framework of quantum algorithms incorporating a variety of quantum speed-ups. We illustrate this by showing how it generalizes a number of prominent quantum algorithms, and quickly derive the following algorithms: optimal Hamiltonian simulation, implementing the Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse with exponential precision, fixed-point amplitude amplification, robust oblivious amplitude amplification, fast QMA amplification, fast quantum OR lemma, certain quantum walk results and several quantum machine learning algorithms.In order to exploit the strengths of the presented method it is useful to know its limitations too, therefore we also prove a lower bound on the efficiency of singular value transformation, which often gives optimal bounds.

With quantum computers of significant size now on the horizon, we should understand how to best exploit their initially limited abilities. To this end, we aim to identify a practical problem that is beyond the reach of current classical computers, but that requires the fewest resources for a quantum computer. We consider quantum simulation of spin systems, which could be applied to understand condensed matter phenomena. We synthesize explicit circuits for three leading quantum simulation algorithms, using diverse techniques to tighten error bounds and optimize circuit implementations. Quantum signal processing appears to be preferred among algorithms with rigorous performance guarantees, whereas higher-order product formulas prevail if empirical error estimates suffice. Our circuits are orders of magnitude smaller than those for the simplest classically infeasible instances of factoring and quantum chemistry, bringing practical quantum computation closer to reality.

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