Apple being late to the artificial intelligence (AI) party with the Apple Intelligence suite, may have been a blessing in disguise. With the new Apple Foundation Models underlining the latest generation Siri and broader scope of context across iOS, iPadOS, macOS as well as watchOS, Apple has not just strengthened the software side of things but also the hardware. The new A20 Pro chip powers the iPhone 18 Pro Max, iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone Duo. Apple’s in-house silicon efforts have well and truly transcended into a different era now, one where they are really pushing the envelope of chip innovation.
The A20 Pro chip has 2 neural engines. You read that right: not one but two. That simply means, as Apple example, 2x the AI compute power compared to the predecessor silicon for the iPhone. Technically, the new dual 16-core Neural Engine accelerates on-device AI models and computational photography, and includes 32 total cores for double the AI processing power when compared with the A19 Pro chip.
Apple is making a big pitch for Apple Intelligence as a private, yet personal intelligent hub on the iPhone and across all Apple devices. The feature set is dynamic across iPhone, Watch, and AirPods, for instance. This level of compute power, which will underline the Apple Intelligence experience across apps including Photos too, underlines a robust attempt to future-proof the latest iPhones as far as AI experiences are concerned.
In fact, the A20 Pro’s development was inspired by the M-series chips that power the Mac computing devices, particularly with thermal management techniques. There is a 50% increase in memory bandwidth, additionally marking serious performance gains. Apple explains that this chip can perform as much as 35% better sustained performance than the iPhone 17 Pro, particularly in the iPhone Duo.
The M-series Apple silicon inspiration comes in the form of how the A20 Pro connects directly to a custom vapour chamber, dissipating heat that’s often the reason for performance fluctuations during multitasking, gaming, and complex AI workloads.
The A20 Pro also has a new display engine, which is particularly relevant for the iPhone Duo foldable, since it powers the main foldable screen as well as the and outer display simultaneously. It is also the reason why Apple has been able to unlock a very fluid looking transition when moving content between the two displays.
The A20 Pro is built with the latest 2-nanometer process technology. On the iPhone 18 Pro phones, this has a new 6-core CPU that integrates the Neural Accelerators and is by far the fastest chip in the world of smartphones. To be fair, this will easily pip many desktop-level chips as well, in outright performance stakes. The new 7-core GPU design is up to 40 percent faster than A19 Pro, the previous generation chip.
The new Apple Intelligence suite is well and truly ready to roll. This partnership with Google includes two on-device Apple Foundation models, and three server-based models. A versatile AFM 3 Core Advanced on-device model with 20-billion parameters, has a unique a sparse architecture that can activate between 1-4 billion parameters depending on type of request.
