Apple now controls all core iPhone chips, prioritizing AI workloads
The iPhone Air is a new hardware piece of Apple’s latest series, which is the latest series of Apple’s latest series, but points to a renewed focus on artificial intelligence within the Slim Phone’s upgraded plateau.
Apple’s Custom A19 Pro Chip offers a significant architectural change by adding neural accelerators to each GPU cores to increase the calculation power. Apple also increased to the second generation of the iPhone, the first wireless chip for the N1 and the iPhone modem C1X. Analysts say he controls all core chips on Apple’s phones.
“The spell is here. When we have control, we can do something beyond what we can do by buying a trader when we have control.” He said. He sat in September with CNBC in Apple Park in September for his first US interview with the new chips.
Until now, Broadcom Although Apple has been making network chips for AirPods and Apple Watch for about ten years, it was the main provider of wireless and Bluetooth chips for iPhones. Apple’s N1 is in the iPhone 17 series and iPhone Air.
Arun Mathias, Vice President of Apple for wireless software technologies and ecosystems, gave CNBC an example of N1’s improved Wi-Fi functionality.
“One of the things that people cannot realize is that your Wi-Fi access points actually contribute to the position awareness of your device, so you don’t need to use GPS, which actually costs more than a power perspective.” He said. He continued: “We can do this more smoothly in the background, without having to awaken the application processor, we can make it more efficient.”
Apple’s new Custom SOC for iPhone, A19 Pro has neural accelerators added to GPU kernels to give priority to AI workloads
Emily Park
For iPhone modems, Qualcomm has been the only provider since 2020. This changed in February when Apple introduced C1 in iPhone 16e. This took action for the first time in 2019 with Apple’s purchase of Intel’s modern business for $ 1 billion. Qualcomm has long warned investors about the future change.
Qualcomm modems stay at the iPhone 17, 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, but Apple’s C1X iPhone Air.
“Bajarin, a Creative Strategies CEO, a technology research and consulting company, said,” It may not be as good as Qualcomm in general yield and performance, but they can control it and run it at lower power. So you will get better battery life. ” He said. Apple is waiting for the “Qualcomm” in the next few years “to” remove it completely “.
Apple’s Mathias said C1X was “twice as fast” than C1 and “using 30% less energy” than the Qualcomm modem in the iPhone 16 Pro.
What Qualcomm or Broadcom did not see much market impact after Apple’s announcement, and both companies will make license agreements with Apple for specific core technologies.
AI Accelerators in A19 Pro
Apple has three new chips Increasing the pressure on the company’s AI strategy from Wall Street.
“They will probably not have their own apple models Google Or Openai, “Bajarin said.” They will still run these services on the iPhone, aren’t they? They want iPhone to be the best place for developers to run AIs. “
Apple has been doing its own system on a chip or SOC since A series, which was released with the iPhone 4 in 2010. The latest generation A19 Pro has a new chip architecture that gives priority to AI workloads and adds neural accelerators to GPU cores.
“We are building the best internal AI ability that everyone has.” He said. “We are focusing on making sure that these phones, which we have sent today or transport soon, can make all the important AII workloads.”
Privacy is an important reason for Apple to give AI priority on the device, but the nation is another reason, he said.
“Effective for us. Sensitive. We know we’re under more control over the experience,” he said.
A “built -in AI” feature is the new front camera that uses AI to detect a new face and automatically takes a horizontal photo. The nation, “A19 PRO’da almost all the capabilities of the complement of a complete complement.” He said.
Apple’s original AI hardware nerve engine, first returned in 2017. The launch was barely mentioned. Instead, everything is about adding calculation power to GPUs.
The nation, “the integration of neural processing in an iPhone MacBook Pro reaches class performance.” He said. “ML is a big, big step in the calculation. And so when you look into the neural engine, you have too much intense matrix mathematics. We don’t have this ability in our GPU. But now we do it with A19 Pro.”
Bajarin told CNBC that Apple’s neural accelerators could work similar to the tensor seeds. NvidiaAI chips like H100.
Material, “We integrate the neural processing to allow someone who writes a program to one of these small processors, expand the instruction set to have a new computer class where they can access there, and all between 3D creation instructions and neural processing instructions, all of them can be transmitted without any problems.” He said.
Apple’s previous generation A19 SOC, Iphone 17 basic model, A19 Pro iPhone Air, iPhone 17 and 17 Pro Max.
Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro, which was screened at Apple Park in California on 9 September 2025, increased the 3D creation features supported by Apple’s special chip A19 Pro and 6 GPU nuclei were added to neural accelerators.
Katie Tarasyov
After overheating problems on the iPhone 15, a new “steam room” on Pro models keeps special chips cool.
“In fact, the system on a chip is located, where the A19 Pro is located,” Apple’s Vice President of the iPhone Product Marketing around the world. He said. “This tattoo, which is incredibly thermally conductive, is thinking about how everything comes together, including unibody aluminum design.
More chipset, more US production
Apple is still relying on others for smaller components, Samsung for memory and Texas instruments for analog chips. However, according to Bajarin, all larger core chips can be designed by Apple on each iPhone as soon as possible next year.
Bajarin, “We hope that the modems will come to Mac. We expect modems to come to the iPad. Probably there are variants that the network chip comes to Mac.” He said. “I think it will be in the entire portfolio for the next few years.”
When CNBC asks Apple’s millet, when the neural accelerators asks if the expected SOC M5 will be in the GPU nuclei, “We have a united approach to architecture.”
The iPhone manufacturer plans to produce at least part of the US in the USA, such as facilities. Taiwan semiconductor production companyThe new campus in Arizona, where CNBC’s first completed Fab visited.
Apple’s A19 Pro is made on the front of the 3-nanometer node of TSMC. While TSMC is working 3nm towards production Arizona until 2028Not there yet.
“If you need to be a pioneer, Taiwan will be.” He said.
In August, Trump announced a 100% tariff for chips from companies that do not do domestic. On the same day, Apple increased its US spending commitment to $ 600 billion in the next four years. CEO Tim Cook said that some of them would go to create a “end -to -end silicone supply chain in America.”
“There is a question about which part of the tariffs affect the supply chain.” He said. “That’s why they’re talking about investing in the tasks of Apple and Tim Cook and there.”
As part of this plan, Bajain said that Apple could give the struggling US chip manufacturer Intel “14a is a serious thought if it really fulfills all its promises.” Although Intel has become a suitable option, “it will be for a while,” he added.
For now, Apple is determined to make chipset in TSMC Arizona.
“We are very excited about the pushing of the TSMC to the manufacture of USA. Obviously, we will help us from a clock -long perspective and we appreciate that the diversity of supply is really important.” He said.
Apple’s 600 billion dollars of US spending how much of the private silicone to go to the nation when asked whether the nation, “I hope too much,” he said.
Watch the video to see that Apple is looking at the last special silicone behind the stage.
Kif Leswing He contributed to this report.
