  Novel computational paradigms may provide the blueprint to help solving the
time and energy limitations that we face with our modern computers, and provide
solutions to complex problems more efficiently (with reduced time, power
consumption and/or less device footprint) than is currently possible with
standard approaches. Spintronics offers a promising basis for the development
of efficient devices and unconventional operations for at least three main
reasons: (i) the low-power requirements of spin-based devices, i.e., requiring
no standby power for operation and the possibility to write information with
small dynamic energy dissipation, (ii) the strong nonlinearity, time
nonlocality, and/or stochasticity that spintronic devices can exhibit, and
(iii) their compatibility with CMOS logic manufacturing processes. At the same
time, the high endurance and speed of spintronic devices means that they can be
rewritten or reconfigured frequently over the lifetime of a circuit, a feature
that is essential in many emerging computing concepts. In this perspective, we
will discuss how spintronics may aid in the realization of efficient devices
primarily based on magnetic tunnel junctions and how those devices can impact
in the development of three unconventional computing paradigms, namely,
reservoir computing, probabilistic computing and memcomputing that in our
opinion may be used to address some limitations of modern computers, providing
a realistic path to intelligent hybrid CMOS-spintronic systems.
