Quantum reservoir computing is an emerging field in machine learning with quantum systems. While classical reservoir computing has proven to be a capable concept for enabling machine learning on real, complex dynamical systems with many degrees of freedom, the advantage of its quantum analog has yet to be fully explored. Here, we establish a link between quantum properties of a quantum reservoir, namely, entanglement and its occupied phase-space dimension, and its linear short-term memory performance. We find that a high degree of entanglement in the reservoir is a prerequisite for a more complex reservoir dynamics, which is key to unlocking the exponential phase space and higher short-term memory capacity. We quantify these relations and discuss the effect of dephasing in the performance of physical quantum reservoirs.
Quantum reservoir computing is an emerging field in machine learning with quantum systems. While classical reservoir computing has proven to be a capable concept for enabling machine learning on real, complex dynamical systems with many degrees of freedom, the advantage of its quantum analog has yet to be fully explored. Here, we establish a link between quantum properties of a quantum reservoir, namely, entanglement and its occupied phase-space dimension, and its linear short-term memory performance. We find that a high degree of entanglement in the reservoir is a prerequisite for a more complex reservoir dynamics, which is key to unlocking the exponential phase space and higher short-term memory capacity. We quantify these relations and discuss the effect of dephasing in the performance of physical quantum reservoirs.
Quantum reservoir computing uses genuine quantum properties to process temporal information. It combines machine learning with physical computing in a novel quantum computing paradigm. Unlike gate-based quantum computing, which requires precise qubit control and decoherence suppression, quantum reservoir computing utilizes the dynamics of disordered quantum networks, with moderate noise even benefiting the reservoir's memory capacity. In this study, we explore how quantum properties affect a system's suitability as a reservoir computer. We investigate the relationship between entanglement in the reservoir and phase space dimension. Our findings show higher entanglement increases the percentage of the exponentially large phase space used for computation. Additionally, we discuss methods to quantify information spread throughout the network. Network symmetries, accidental or intentional, significantly influence dynamics and the reservoir's memory capacity. Lastly, we highlight the potential and limitations of using arrays of semiconductor-based coupled microcavities for hybrid quantum-photonic implementations of reservoir computing.
Quantum Reservoir Computing (QRC) utilizes the intrinsic dynamics of quantum systems to process temporal data efficiently, offering potential advantages in computational power and energy efficiency. Unlike classical reservoirs, quantum reservoirs leverage properties such as superposition and entanglement, which may enhance information processing capabilities. In this work, we investigate a QRC framework based on two coupled Kerr nonlinear oscillators, a system well-suited for time-series prediction tasks due to its complex nonlinear interactions and potentially high-dimensional state space. We explore how its performance in time-series prediction depends on key physical parameters: input drive strength, Kerr nonlinearity, and oscillator coupling, and analyze the role of entanglement in improving the reservoir’s computational performance, focusing on its effect on predicting non-trivial time series. Using logarithmic negativity to quantify entanglement and normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) to evaluate predictive accuracy, our results suggest that entanglement provides a computational advantage on average up to a threshold in the input frequency, which persists under some levels of dissipation and dephasing. These findings contribute to the broader understanding of quantum reservoirs and highlight their potential for high performance, efficient quantum machine learning and time-series forecasting.
The intersection of quantum information processing and machine learning has recently at-tracted considerable interest within the physics and artificial intelligence communities. From a physical perspective, quantum computing offers fundamentally new modes of information processing, enabled by superposition, interference, and entanglement, which can lead to ad-vantages in computational speed and resource efficiency over classical approaches. These developments have motivated the exploration of machine learning paradigms that lever-age quantum dynamics as a computational resource. In parallel, reservoir computing—a non–von Neumann and neuromorphic computing framework—has gained attention due to its reliance on high-dimensional dynamical systems, in-memory computation, and low en-ergy consumption. Quantum reservoir computing extends this paradigm by exploiting the intrinsic dynamics of quantum many-body systems, such as spin networks, to process tem-poral information. Despite growing interest in quantum reservoir architectures, the role of genuinely quantum resources, in particular entanglement, in determining their information-processing capabilities remains incompletely understood. In this thesis, we study a distributed spin-network reservoir in which two independent time series are injected into separate qubits. Using short-term memory capacity as an opera-tional measure, we analyze how information introduced at distinct sites propagates through the network and how different entanglement structures contribute to storing and combining past inputs. Focusing on bilinear memory tasks, which require reconstructing the product of the two inputs at various delays, we probe temporal memory. Due to the computational cost associated with simulating open quantum many-body dynamics, the present study focuses on a minimal spin-network architecture consisting of four qubits, with two qubits serving as input nodes that receive independent time series. Even for such moderate system sizes, the numerical integration of the open-system dynamics are computationally demanding. Nevertheless, this minimal setting already captures the essential mechanisms of distributed information processing in quantum reservoirs. By computing the logarithmic negativity across different bipartitions of the reservoir, we investigate how memory performance relates to the underlying entanglement structure. We find that the short-term memory capacity is maximized at relatively weak coupling strengths, where entanglement is present but remains moderate. Among the various bipar-titions, the entanglement between the two input qubits consistently plays the most promi-nent role in learning performance. In this optimal regime, the reservoir exhibits long-lived memory, while a characteristic reduction in performance at zero delay, observed across all frequencies, reflects the finite time required for information to propagate through the sys-tem. Taken together, these results indicate that effective learning in distributed quantum reservoir computing is enabled by moderate, well-structured entanglement, rather than by maximal correlations.
Reservoir computing is a promising neuromorphic paradigm, and its quantum implementation using spin networks has shown some advantage when entanglement is present. Here, we consider a distributed scenario in which two distinct input time series are injected into separate qubits of a spin-network reservoir. We investigate how the overall entanglement, as well as its localization in the system, influence the performance of the reservoir. Focusing on bilinear memory tasks that require computing the product of the two inputs, we evaluate the short-term memory capacity and correlate it with logarithmic negativity as a measure of bipartite entanglement. We find that short-term memory capacity reaches its maximum at relatively small coupling strengths. In contrast, average entanglement peaks at larger couplings. Analyzing entanglement across all bipartitions, we find that the entanglement between the two input qubits is consistently the strongest and most relevant for task performance. In the small coupling strength regime where the short-term memory capacity is maximized, the reservoir exhibits an extended memory tail: performance remains high for a long time. Finally, a pronounced dip in performance at zero time delay, observed across frequencies, indicates that information requires a finite propagation time through the reservoir before it can be effectively recalled. In summary, our results show that moderate entanglement, particularly between the two input qubits, plays a key role in enhancing short-term memory performance.
Quantum Reservoir Computing (QRC) offers potential advantages over classical reservoir computing, including inherent processing of quantum inputs and a vast Hilbert space for state exploration. Yet, the relation between the performance of reservoirs based on complex and many-body quantum systems and non-classical state features is not established. Through an extensive analysis of QRC based on a transverse-field Ising model we show how different quantum effects, such as quantum coherence and correlations, contribute to improving the performance in temporal tasks, as measured by the Information Processing Capacity. Additionally, we critically assess the impact of finite measurement resources and noise on the reservoir’s dynamics in different regimes, quantifying the limited ability to exploit quantum effects for increasing damping and noise strengths. Our results reveal a monotonic relationship between reservoir performance and coherence, along with the importance of quantum effects in the ergodic regime. Quantum Reservoir Computing leverages the quantum properties of physical systems for solving temporal tasks. This study shows the importance of quantum effects, such as coherence and superposition, in the reservoir’s performance for different dynamical regimes, while considering the impact of finite measurements and noisy environments.
Physical reservoir computing provides a powerful machine learning paradigm that exploits nonlinear physical dynamics for efficient information processing. By incorporating quantum effects, quantum reservoir computing offers superior potential for machine learning applications, as quantum dynamics are exponentially costly to simulate classically. Here, we present a novel quantum reservoir computing approach based on correlated quantum spin systems, exploiting natural quantum many-body interactions to generate reservoir dynamics, thereby circumventing the practical challenges of deep quantum circuits. Our experimental implementation supports nontrivial quantum entanglement and exhibits sufficient dynamical complexity for high-performance machine learning. We achieve state-of-the-art performance in experiments on standard time-series benchmarks, reducing prediction error by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude compared to previous quantum reservoir experiments. In long-term weather forecasting, our 9-spin quantum reservoir delivers greater prediction accuracy than classical reservoirs with thousands of nodes. This represents the first experimental demonstration of quantum machine learning outperforming large-scale classical models on real-world tasks.