Apple is reportedly planning substantial changes to the A18 Pro chip designed specifically to enable “on-device” artificial intelligence capabilities. The rumor was reported by Jeff Pu, an authoritative analyst at Haitong International Tech Research, according to whom Apple would also have increased the production of this SoC earlier than usual
“Based on our supply chain controls, we see increasing demand for Apple’s A18, while the volume of the A17 Pro has stabilized since February. We note that Apple’s A18 Pro, the 6-GPU version, will feature a larger die area (compared to the A17 Pro), a trend that could be related to “Edge AI” computing
An increase in the die size of a chip allows more transistors and components to be accommodated, generally allowing for higher performance. On the other hand, as the size of the die increases, so do the risks of defects and design issues, which could impact energy efficiency and heat dissipation if the perfect balance is not found.
Edge AI, on the other hand, is a technology that leverages the computing power of devices to implement AI-based features in order to process and analyze data directly at the source, not on external servers.
The ability to perform most of the functions directly on the device would be one of the main goals of Apple which, as its traditional approach to data protection, tries to keep everything as much as possible “on device” rather than relying on cloud infrastructures. However, recent rumors would also point to a possible agreement with a partner (potentially Google or OpenAI) to allow some AI features.
To pursue its goal, Apple has recently acquired DarwinAI, a Canadian startup that, among other technologies, has developed some that can reduce the size and increase the speed of artificial intelligence systems, an aspect of particular interest precisely for the execution of on-device functions.
Today’s report is not the first in which structural changes to Apple’s SoC are hypothesized that could allow for higher performance in terms of computational functions for artificial intelligence. In recent weeks, in fact, rumors had already emerged of a possible “increase in the number of integrated AI computing cores” thanks to a more powerful Neural Engine.
Unlike the current iPhone 15s, both the iPhone 16s and iPhone 16 Pros are all expected to adopt the A18 processor. Only the “Pro” version, however, is expected to have these AI-focused changes.
