Performance Analysis of Variational Quantum Classifier and Quantum Kernel SVM under NISQ Noise Models Using Qiskit Aer
The rapid advancement of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices necessitates a systematic evaluation of quantum machine learning (QML) algorithms to determine their feasibility for near-term applications. This study aims to benchmark the Variational Quantum Classifier (VQC)and the Quantum Kernel Support Vector Machine (QSVM) under realistic noise conditions modeled using Qiskit Aer. The primary objective is to investigate the impact of depolarizing and amplitude damping noise on the classification performance of these algorithms. Using the Iris binary classification task, we simulated four noise levels (0, 0.01, 0.05, 0.1) and evaluated accuracy across 1024 measurement shots. Results show that QSVM achieves superior accuracy (70%) under ideal and lownoise conditions, while VQC exhibits higher resilience at moderate noise (50% at 0.05 noise level) due to its adaptive Variational parameters. At higher noise levels (0.1), both models converge to ~35–40% accuracy, indicating significant degradation. These findings provide actionable insights for algorithm selection on NISQ hardware, with VQC favored for moderately noisy devices and QSVM preferable for low-noise or error-mitigated systems. The study concludes by highlighting the need for noise-aware ansatz design and error mitigation techniques to enhance QML performance in NISQ regimes.