Eighty years since Dirac developed the quantum theory of electron spin, contemporary information technology still relies largely on classical electronics: the charge of electrons for computation and magnetic materials for permanent storage. There is a growing interest in exploiting spins in semiconductor nanostructures for the manipulation and storage of information in emergent technologies based upon spintronics and quantum logic. We provide an overview of temporally- and spatially-resolved optoelectronic measurements used to generate, manipulate, and interrogate electron and nuclear spin states in the solid state. In particular, we discuss progress toward scalable quantum systems based on quantum control and coherent coupling between single spins and optical photons for technologies beyond electronics. These demonstrations include advanced materials synthesis techniques, gigahertz-rate coherent manipulation, nondestructive single spin readout, nanofabrication of spin arrays, operation of a single nuclear spin quantum memory and recent material discoveries that represent progress toward the integration of spins and photons for future quantum information processing