Our society relies upon information processing at a scale never seen before in human history. We are indeed experiencing an exponential growth in processing demand, as more and more applications in the most disparate domains emerge. While continuous improvements in the manufacturing processes of microprocessors has been able so far to mitigate the ecological and economical costs this trend imposes, due to reaching physical limitations in the semiconductor industry - the end of Dennard scaling - we can likely no further rely on technological advancements to support the ongoing hunger for computing resources.