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Apple’s latest custom silicon chip, the M5 is its most aggressive leap in artificial intelligence processing. It seeks to keep up with rivals Nvidia, Qualcomm, and the rapidly intensifying AI Hardware Race.
Apple M5 chip, built on third-generation 3-nanometer tech, delivers four times more GPU compute performance than its predecessor, M4. It also integrates a Neural accelerator into each GPU core, a first for Apple. The new chip powers the refreshed MacBook Pro 14-inch, iPad Pro and Apple Vision Pro. All are available for pre-order starting today.
Johny Srouji is Apple’s senior vice-president of Hardware Technologies. He called the chip the “next big leap in AI performance” for Apple silicon, highlighting its role to enable on-device Intelligence, real-time render, and large model processing without the cloud.
The M5’s 10-core graphics card and up-to-10-core CPU delivers up to 15% faster performance in multithreaded applications and up to 45% better graphics performance compared to the M4. It also has a 16-core Neural engine and 153GB/s of unified memory bandwidth. This is nearly 30% more than the previous generation. This allows for faster local execution of large AI model.
The new silicon enhances Apple Intelligence, boosting performance of on-device generative AI apps such as Image Playground, Genmoji and Metal 4, while optimizing third party apps using frameworks such as Core ML and Metal.
Apple’s move into AI hardware is part of a wider industry shift toward on-device AI, which aims to improve privacy, efficiency, and latency. Apple continues to stress energy efficiency, a key component of its Apple 2030 carbon neutral plan. The company notes that M5-powered products meet its strictest standards for environmental performance to date.
Apple’s launch will allow it to compete directly in the AI computing market, which has become a key factor in the valuation of major chipmakers. Investors will be watching to see if the AI capabilities of M5 drive another upgrade cycle, particularly for Macs or iPads where growth has slowed.
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