A receiver architecture for physically-assisted computing of transforms, such as discrete Fourier transforms (DFT) and discrete Hilbert transforms (DHT), employs mutually-coherent optical frequency combs for detection of the coherent beating between an optical signal and a reference optical tone generated by a local oscillator (LO). A signal replication mixer generates a plurality of signal optical tones having a frequency pitch with an input signal mapped thereon. A reference mixer (local oscillator) generates a plurality of reference optical tones having an offset frequency pitch relative to the signal tones. A receiver backplane detects coherent beating between the signal optical tones and the reference optical tones. The input signal may be in the optical domain or in the radio-frequency domain.