By: Amoha Basrur and Pranoy Jainendran
The following excerpt is from Chapter 6 — Power Up: How Spintronic Nanodevices Can Fuel the Future of ORF Global Quarterly: Energy and Tech: Powering the Future.
The exponential growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) computing is pushing conventional charge-based electronics towards their fundamental limits in power consumption and scalability. As transistors shrink and processing demands increase, the heat generated by leakage currents and switching energy is exceeding what chip architectures can safely dissipate. This has drawn attention to spintronics, a branch of nanotechnology that exploits both the magnetic and electrical properties of electrons. Spintronic nanodevices offer superior energy efficiency for brain-inspired computing architectures, with magnetic tunnel junctions emerging as especially promising building blocks that are compatible with existing chip manufacturing processes.
The technology is now considered not only a key enabler of next-generation, low-power AI hardware but also a foundation for next-generation memory, logic, and quantum computing. With applications already spanning the automotive, aerospace, and data-centre sectors, spintronics has become a strategic priority for countries with the manufacturing capacity to compete for it, driving targeted R&D funding, national roadmaps, and industry partnerships aimed at securing technological leadership and supply chain resilience. This strategic importance is already reshaping geopolitics and driving indigenisation. For the Global South, which sits almost entirely on the consumer side of this value chain, the stakes are high. The technology’s concentration among a handful of advanced economies risks blocking the entry points for the Global South to be a part of the next wave of technological change.
The next leap in computing may depend as much on materials science as software. Spintronics is opening new possibilities for faster, more energy-efficient computing, with implications for AI, semiconductor leadership and technological competitiveness. Learn more in ORF Global Quarterly: Energy and Tech: Powering the Future.