  We present a unified framework to describe lattice gauge theories by means of
tensor networks: this framework is efficient as it exploits the high amount of
local symmetry content native of these systems describing only the gauge
invariant subspace. Compared to a standard tensor network description, the
gauge invariant one allows to speed-up real and imaginary time evolution of a
factor that is up to the square of the dimension of the link variable. The
gauge invariant tensor network description is based on the quantum link
formulation, a compact and intuitive formulation for gauge theories on the
lattice, and it is alternative to and can be combined with the global symmetric
tensor network description. We present some paradigmatic examples that show how
this architecture might be used to describe the physics of condensed matter and
high-energy physics systems. Finally, we present a cellular automata analysis
which estimates the gauge invariant Hilbert space dimension as a function of
the number of lattice sites and that might guide the search for effective
simplified models of complex theories.
