A new design concept for magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) is proposed in Nature Communications this week. This may help overcome the bottlenecks currently hampering its use and widespread commercialization. MRAM offers significant promise as a memory technology because it is “non-volatile”: that is it encodes information magnetically rather than electrically, therefore retaining stored information even when switched off. However, the devices proposed so far are blighted by low storage densities and high power consumption. Long-Qing Chen and colleagues present a design for an MRAM device that overcomes these shortcomings, as well as displaying high-speed operation at room temperature.