Systems and methods for switch prefetch in multicore computer chips can allow a programmer to tailor operations of a computer program to available data. Control-flow decisions can be made by the program based on the availability of data in a cache. For example, a new instruction in a processor instruction set can receive a list comprising pairs of data addresses and code addresses. The processor can look for data items corresponding to the listed data addresses, and find the first available data item in the cache. When a cached data item is found, control is transferred to the code address supplied in the table. If no data is in the cache, then the processor can stall until the most quickly fetched data item is available.