Giovanni Finocchio
Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Physical Sciences and Earth Sciences, University of Messina
Builder The claim is about what the hardware does, and the philosophy is left open
Giovanni Finocchio is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics at the University of Messina, where he leads research on spintronics, micromagnetics, skyrmionics, and unconventional hardware for neuromorphic and probabilistic computing.
In 250 Magnetic Tunnel Junctions-Based Probabilistic Ising Machine (Nature Communications, 2026, doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72020-8, arXiv:2506.14590), Finocchio, Hyunsoo Yang, Shuhan Yang, Andrea Grimaldi, and co-authors scaled room-temperature spintronic probabilistic computing to an array of 250 spin-transfer torque magnetic tunnel junctions (STT-MTJs) coupled to an FPGA. By using the intrinsic thermal and spin-torque stochasticity of the MTJs as tunable true random number generators and implementing cluster parallel updates alongside simulated quantum annealing, the team demonstrated a 10-fold sampling speedup on sparse graphs and a 20-fold improvement in optimization solution quality.
Finocchio is classified as a Builder on this site. His hardware architectures test how physical spintronic fluctuations can replace digital pseudorandom generators in large-scale energy-based sampling networks.
Known for. Spintronic neuromorphic and probabilistic computing, 250-MTJ Probabilistic Ising Machine, micromagnetic solver development
Coverage on this site
Related researchers
- Shuhan YangDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore250-MTJ Probabilistic Ising Machine, spin-transfer torque magnetic tunnel junction p-bits, cluster parallel annealing
- Andrea GrimaldiDepartment of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Physical Sciences and Earth Sciences, University of MessinaSpintronic probabilistic computing, 250-MTJ Probabilistic Ising Machine, simulated quantum annealing on p-bits
- Hyunsoo YangDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of SingaporeSpintronics and magnetic tunnel junction fabrication, 250-MTJ Probabilistic Ising Machine, spin-orbit torque devices
- Navid Anjum AaditDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University (present address); previously University of California, Santa BarbaraFirst author of the sparse Ising machine on FPGAs (Nature Electronics, 2022) and of the programmable probabilistic computer with one million p-bits (arXiv 2606.25313, 2026)
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