As the world prepares for a leap in technology with generative AI, Samsung has already joined the wagon with generative AI features on its Galaxy S24 series (and more to come). Apple, surprisingly, hasn’t been away since the next-gen iOS 18 will have powerful generative AI features as well. What’s even more thrilling is the fact that Apple will introduce both A18 (for iPhones) and M4 chips (for Mac models) with upgraded Neural Engine and yes, that means ‘more cores’.
The information comes from Taiwanese media Economic Daily News according to whom, the Cupertino-based giant will introduce a Neural Engine with more cores to significantly improve AI performance on the devices. iOS 18 is already in line to bring AI features to Messages, Siri, Shortcuts, and beyond.
However, the devices will need hardware improvements too and that’s where both A18/M4 and a Neural Engine (NPU) with more cores come into play.
Apple has been packing the same number of cores (at 16) on its Neural Engine ever since iPhone 12 arrived in 2020. This doesn’t mean the Neural Engine has remained stagnant in performance over the years. Apple says the neural engine on the A17 Pro (iPhone 15 Pro) performed up to 2x faster than the A16 on the iPhone 14 Pro. It remains to be seen what more cores do to upcoming devices, especially in the realm of generative AI.
Taiwan-based TSMC will be fabbing the A18 and M4 line of chipsets to power future iPhones, iPads, and Macs. TSMC will be investing heavily into enhancing its 3nm manufacturing process whose first generation was used during the development of A17 Pro.
As usual, we can expect significant improvements on both the A18 and M3 line of chips in terms of CPU, GPU, and neural processing that supports AI computing on the devices.
The Taiwanese giant TSMC is already investing somewhere between US$28 to US$32 billion this year where a huge chunk will go into the development of advanced processes with some reserved for special processes and advanced packing among others.
Coming back to the release schedule, the iPhone 16 series is slated to arrive in September or October this year with the A18 series of chipsets. iOS 18 will make its debut at the WWDC 2024 followed by beta releases and finally, an official rollout during the iPhone 16 launch.
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