Quantum machine learning and quantum-inspired methods applied to computational fluid dynamics: a short review

Abstract: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is central to science and engineering, but faces severe scalability challenges, especially in high-dimensional, multiscale, and turbulent regimes. Traditional numerical methods often become prohibitively expensive under these conditions. Quantum computing and quantum-inspired methods have been investigated as promising alternatives. This review surveys advances at the intersection of quantum computing, quantum algorithms, machine learning, and tensor network techniques for CFD. We discuss the use of Variational Quantum Algorithms as hybrid quantum-classical solvers for PDEs, emphasizing their ability to incorporate nonlinearities through Quantum Nonlinear Processing Units. We further review Quantum Neural Networks and Quantum Physics-Informed Neural Networks, which extend classical machine learning frameworks to quantum hardware and have shown advantages in parameter efficiency and solution accuracy for certain CFD benchmarks. Beyond quantum computing, we examine tensor network methods, originally developed for quantum many-body systems and now adapted to CFD as efficient high-dimensional compression and solver tools. Reported studies include several orders of magnitude reductions in memory and runtime while preserving accuracy. Together, these approaches highlight quantum and quantum-inspired strategies that may enable more efficient CFD solvers. This review closes with perspectives: quantum CFD remains out of reach in the NISQ era, but quantum-inspired tensor networks already show practical benefits, with hybrid approaches offering the most promising near-term strategy.