Apple’s new M6 chip gets more cores and more AI compute

JUST IN: Apple unveils its first 2nm chip, the M6, alongside the M5 Ultra it calls its 'most powerful chip ever', powering new Mac Mini and Mac Studio models built to run frontier AI locally.

Apple just built the world's first two nanometer chip. It's called the M6, and it lands in a new Mac Mini.

Here's the new silicon. Twelve CPU cores, up from ten, including two of what Apple now calls super cores, plus a twelve core GPU with a neural accelerator baked into every single one. Apple claims the fastest single threaded performance on the planet and a dual sixteen core Neural Engine for running AI on your desk, not in someone's data center.

And for the people with real money, there's the M5 Ultra, two M5 Max dies fused into one quad die monster with up to thirty six CPU cores. Apple flat out calls it their most powerful chip ever, and it's going into a new Mac Studio built to run frontier AI models locally.

The quiet part is the loud part. Apple just told the cloud AI business, my customers might not need you.

This is Kateryna Kovalenko, reporting for HIT.