We introduce a quantum reservoir computing online protocol that realizes amplitude encoding on quantum hardware. Our scheme combines mid-circuit measurement and reset operations to implement the partial-trace dynamics underlying amplitude encoding, while an indirect measurement scheme provides access to reservoir observables without interrupting temporal processing. In contrast to other approaches, our method preserves online operation, avoids input buffering, and keeps the runtime linear in the number of time steps. We present the theoretical formulation of the protocol and a proof-of-principle implementation on quantum hardware, and we evaluate its performance on two standard benchmark tasks. Our results show that the reservoir dynamics can be monitored through both direct measurements of the input qubits and indirect measurements of the memory qubits, enabling observation of the full system while isolating the internal evolution of the reservoir. This work provides a practical route toward scalable hardware implementations of amplitude-encoded quantum reservoir computing and opens the door to systematic experimental studies of complex quantum reservoirs.
We introduce a quantum reservoir computing online protocol that realizes amplitude encoding on quantum hardware. Our scheme combines mid-circuit measurement and reset operations to implement the partial-trace dynamics underlying amplitude encoding, while an indirect measurement scheme provides access to reservoir observables without interrupting temporal processing. In contrast to other approaches, our method preserves online operation, avoids input buffering, and keeps the runtime linear in the number of time steps. We present the theoretical formulation of the protocol and a proof-of-principle implementation on quantum hardware, and we evaluate its performance on two standard benchmark tasks. Our results show that the reservoir dynamics can be monitored through both direct measurements of the input qubits and indirect measurements of the memory qubits, enabling observation of the full system while isolating the internal evolution of the reservoir. This work provides a practical route toward scalable hardware implementations of amplitude-encoded quantum reservoir computing and opens the door to systematic experimental studies of complex quantum reservoirs.
Quantum reservoir computing (QRC) provides a powerful framework for processing temporal data using quantum dynamics, but incorporating measurements into the reservoir remains a fundamental challenge and distinctive feature with respect to classical settings. The induced back-action can vary from a source of disturbance to a computational resource, as measurement deeply modifies the dynamics underlying temporal processing. Existing approaches have treated specific monitoring schemes independently, missing the common physical principles governing online quantum reservoirs. Here we develop a general theory of monitored quantum reservoir computing based on indirect quantum measurements, which unifies projective, weak, partial, and dissipative monitoring protocols within a single operational framework. Measurement back-action can serve as a controllable resource, providing the effective dissipation and non-unital dynamics required for successful QRC, even when the underlying unmonitored evolution is unsuitable. We derive general criteria under which monitored dynamics satisfy the echo-state property, fading memory, and input separability, including a necessary and sufficient condition for emergent strict contractivity. By comparing different monitoring schemes under a common reference dynamics, we show that these protocols are not interchangeable parameterizations to be optimized for peak performance, but rather constitute qualitatively distinct routes to computational capability, each enabled by the interplay between information extraction and measurement-induced disturbance -- a trade-off that can be further shaped through time multiplexing. Our results provide a unified theoretical foundation for online monitored quantum reservoir computing and establish quantum measurement engineering as a systematic approach for designing reservoir architectures across different quantum platforms.
A distinctive feature of Quantum Reservoir Computing (QRC) is the ability to directly embed quantum input states into the reservoir dynamics. However, the resulting output is fundamentally linear for a single input state, preventing QRC from naturally computing nonlinear functionals such as purity or entropy. We overcome this limitation with a quantum-classical hybrid architecture combining a qubit quantum reservoir with a classical echo state network (ESN), allowing both nonlinear functional approximation and effective temporal processing. We systematically study performance under two information regimes: full-tomography and partial information (single-axis measurements), with the latter demonstrating that the hybrid system outperforms its standalone components in both linear and nonlinear tasks due to the enhanced information retrieval provided by the quantum reservoir. Building on these results, we apply an online monitoring protocol that explicitly accounts for measurement back-action and finite measurement ensembles, enabling a realistic assessment of performance under experimental conditions. These results establish hybrid quantum-classical reservoir computing (HRC) architectures as a practical and scalable route for enhanced quantum machine learning on near-term qubit hardware.
Quantum reservoir computing (QRC) uses the dynamics of a fixed or weakly tuned quantum system to transform temporal and sequential inputs into measured features, while training is typically confined to a classical readout. This separation reduces reliance on repeated quantum parameter updates and avoids the barren plateaus associated with variational circuit training. Its computational power is often attributed to the exponentially large Hilbert space of the quantum system. However, the memory, nonlinearity, and expressivity that determine what a reservoir can actually compute depend jointly on the input encoding, quantum evolution, observables, measurement, and readout, not on Hilbert space dimension alone. On hardware, these capabilities are further constrained by finite sampling, hardware noise, measurement backaction, and the cost of estimating observables, so a large state space alone does not guarantee useful computation. In this survey, we develop a common system model that connects these components and use it to organize QRC foundations, computational properties, reservoir architectures, operating protocols, and physical implementations. We examine spin, photonic, superconducting, bosonic, neutral atom, and other analog platforms, together with applications, software and high performance computing support, benchmarking, and reproducibility. The analysis distinguishes hardware demonstrations from simulations and identifies the assumptions and resources that govern comparisons across implementations. Current results do not establish a broad quantum advantage over well matched classical reservoirs. We therefore specify the resource accounting, benchmark standards, and theoretical criteria needed to evaluate claims of quantum advantage.
Quantum reservoir computing (QRC) leverages the nonlinearity and correlations of quantum systems to enhance machine learning tasks. We explore continuous-variable (CV) photonic platforms for QRC using frequency- and pulse-multiplexed squeezed states generated via nonlinear waveguides, enabling scalable, room-temperature architectures without single-photon sources or detectors. We introduce a novel, measurement-based QRC protocol that uses a neural network of cluster states and local operations, in which input data are encoded through measurement via quantum teleportation. In this design, measurements enable input injection, information processing, and continuous monitoring for time-series tasks. The architecture’s power and versatility are demonstrated through benchmark tasks, showing that the protocol exhibits internal memory and is suitable for both static and temporal information processing without hardware modifications. Additionally, we report a proof-of-principle experimental realization of QRC based on pump-phase encoding and electronic feedback, demonstrating temporal data processing capabilities.
Quantum measurements affect the state of the observed systems via backaction. While projective measurements extract maximal classical information, they drastically alter the system. In contrast, indirect measurements balance information extraction with the degree of disturbance. Considering the prevalent use of projective measurements in quantum computing and communication protocols, the potential benefits of indirect measurements in these fields remain largely unexplored. In this work, we show that measurement backaction, a purely quantum effect, can be harnessed within the quantum reservoir computing framework to enhance temporal data processing. Incorporating indirect measurements leads to improved execution-time scaling and overall performance. Our results reveal that carefully optimizing the measurement strength can significantly improve the quantum reservoir computing algorithm performance. Furthermore, our approach demonstrates improved memory performance when compared with state-of-the-art classical-feedback protocols. This work provides a comprehensive and practical recipe to promote the implementation of indirect-measurement-based protocols in quantum reservoir computing. Moreover, our findings motivate further exploration of experimental protocols that leverage the backaction effects of indirect measurements.
Existing approaches to quantum reservoir computing can be broadly categorized into restart-based and continuous protocols. Restart-based methods require reinitializing the quantum circuit for each time step, while continuous protocols use mid-circuit measurements to enable uninterrupted information processing. A gap exists between these two paradigms: while restart-based methods naturally have high execution times due to the need for circuit reinitialization, they can employ novel feedback connections to enhance performance. In contrast, continuous methods have significantly faster execution times but typically lack such feedback mechanisms. In this work, we investigate a novel quantum reservoir computing scheme that integrates feedback connections, which can operate within the coherence time of a qubit. We demonstrate our architecture using a minimal example and evaluate memory capacity and predictive capabilities. We show that the correlation coefficient for the shortterm memory task on past inputs is nonzero, indicating that feedback connections can effectively operate during continuous processing to allow the model to remember past inputs.