Quantum optical reservoir computing powered by boson sampling

It is well known that boson sampling, a restricted non-universal quantum computation model, enables one to perform tasks that are hard to accomplish with digital computers. Boson sampling is associated with sampling the probability distribution of identical bosons passing through a random interferometer, and its quantum advantage has been demonstrated. It has, however, proven elusive to use such a model for practical applications. In this work, we show that the random interferometer powering boson sampling can be used to generate the complex dynamics necessary for quantum reservoir computing. We use these dynamics to perform various image recognition problems, illustrating the utility of the approach even for modest-size systems.