Albert Fert is a French physicist and one of the discoverers of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disks. He was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Peter Grünberg. Fert has made many contributions to the development of spintronics. Following his 2007 Nobel Prize, he began to explore possible spintronics applications of topological properties at surfaces and interfaces. His most recent works are on the topologically protected magnetic solitons called skyrmions and on the conversion between charge current and spin current by topological insulators.