Chemical reservoir computation in a self-organizing reaction network

Abstract The flow of information is as crucial to life as the flow of energy1,2. Chemical reaction networks such as those found in metabolism and signalling pathways enable cells to process information from their environment3,4. Current approaches to molecular information processing and computation typically pursue digital computation paradigms and require extensive molecular-level engineering5. Despite significant advances, these approaches have not reached the level of information processing capabilities seen in living systems. Here, we report on the discovery and implementation of a chemical reservoir computer based on the formose reaction6. We demonstrate how this complex, self-organizing chemical reaction network can perform multiple non-linear classification tasks in parallel, of predicting the dynamics of other complex systems, and of time series forecasting. This in chemico information processing system provides proof-of-principle for the emergent computational capabilities of complex chemical reaction networks, paving the way for a new class of biomimetic information processing systems.