Apple described the Neural Engine as optimised for large generative models in support of Apple Intelligence. Its only quantified claim compared the part to the two-generations-old A16, which makes the step over the immediately preceding A17 Pro impossible to read from Apple’s own numbers.
Apple A18
The Neural Engine was explicitly re-tuned for large generative models, but Apple benchmarked it against the A16, not the A17 Pro.
Silicon from Apple
9 chips on record, newest first.
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2026
Apple A20 Pro
2nm Dual 16-core Neural Engine (32 cores total)
2x the compute power to run on-device AI models
Relative only -
2025
Apple A19 Pro
Not stated by Apple 16-core Neural Engine plus per-GPU-core Neural Accelerators
Up to 3x the peak GPU compute over the previous generation (a GPU figure, not a Neural Engine one)))
Relative only -
2025
Apple A19
Third-generation 3nm Neural Engine plus per-GPU-core Neural Accelerators
No throughput figure published
None published -
2024
Apple A18 Pro
Second-generation 3nm 16-core Neural Engine
17 per cent increase in total system memory bandwidth
Relative only -
2024
Apple A18
Second-generation 3nm 16-core Neural Engine
Runs machine learning models up to 2x faster than A16 Bionic
Relative only -
2023Relative only
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2022Absolute
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2021Absolute
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2020Absolute