Apple Intelligence Servers Expected to Get All-New, Turbocharged Chip

Apple Intelligence servers are currently powered by the M2 Ultra chip, and they are expected to start using M4 series chips next year. In an eventual move away from Mac chips for server use, The Information today reported that Apple is developing a new server chip that will offer even faster performance for AI features.

Apple Intelligence iPhone 16
The report said the new chip contains "many duplicates" of Apple's Neural Engine, so it sounds like it will offer turbocharged performance for AI processing.

At least a trio of companies are believed to be involved with the chip. Apple is said to be handling the overall design of the chip, while Broadcom is said to be providing some networking technology for it. TSMC is expected to begin mass production of the chip in 2026, using its third-generation 3nm process, known as N3P. That is the same process expected to be used for the A19 chips in the iPhone 17 models next year.

The chip will likely power some Apple Intelligence features that rely on server-based generation, such as Image Playground, according to the report:

Apple will likely use the new AI chip it is developing for inference, where the chip processes new data—such as a user describing a possible image—and applies them to the models to generate an output, like producing the image itself.

More on Broadcom's involvement, from the report:

Like Google, Apple is relying on Broadcom for technology to network or link the chips together so they can work in unison to compute data more quickly. That technology has been one of the key drivers of AI development, making it possible to compute the massive amounts of data required to train and run LLMs. Networking technology is one of Broadcom's key strengths.

The paywalled report offers many more details about the chip.

Apple has announced that iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 will be released today with additional Apple Intelligence features, including Genmoji, Image Playground, Image Wand, and ChatGPT integration for Siri. There is also a new Visual Intelligence feature on all iPhone 16 models that allows you to quickly identify things in the real world using the Camera Control button on those devices. As part of Apple Intelligence, Siri will gain features like on-screen awareness and deeper per-app controls, likely starting with iOS 18.4. And with iOS 19.4 in 2026, Siri is expected to become more conversational like ChatGPT.

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Top Rated Comments

Apple Knowledge Navigator Avatar
8 months ago
M4 Ultra its own custom chip? Hopefully…
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
everlast3434 Avatar
8 months ago
My iPhone 16 pro was apparently built for Apple Intelligence. Do I already have it? Am I still waiting for it? I havent noticed it, does that mean it's working? Thanks for making things clear Apple.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dannys1 Avatar
8 months ago

Hmmm... new, more powerful server chips. Sounds a bit like the Intel Xeons that were used in the Mac Pro. If they brought these chips to their Mac line, it might finally make the Mac Pro worth buying again.
I doubt it, it sounds more like specific Neural Engine based processors, possibly dropping the performance cores all together just to handle ML and generative AI. They're more focused not more powerful.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CWallace Avatar
8 months ago

Not disagreeing, as I have no direct experience of the semi-conductor industry. But isn't CPU design/build extremely expensive? So if there was a way to amortize the cost by putting it in a product like the Mac Pro, it would make sense to do so?
If it is designed primarily around accelerating Apple-specific Large Language Models, that could limit its suitability to general computing tasks under macOS.

And Apple is probably paying a small fortunate to third-party OEMs now for the LLM-focused servers in their data centers, so moving that in-house should provide significant cost-savings and eliminate the need to use it in consumer/prosumer/professional products for general sale.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dannys1 Avatar
8 months ago

What, exactly, are these M2 pro chips doing that is soooo demanding that they are ready to be upgraded? I know it takes a beefy processor to say "hmm", "working on it" and "still on it", but I think the current setup can handle it.
Processing generative AI for a possible 100m iPhone 15 and 16 users?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dannys1 Avatar
8 months ago

Isn't a lot (majority) of that supposed to be done on-device? Genuine question since I don't use generative AI.
I've tested to see if the image generation is - but generally I think it's mostly the small LLM that is done on device which runs (or will run) Siri, understanding context, writing tools etc
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)