Details on the chips used in the upcoming iPhone 16 suggest the phone will receive a huge AI boost.

Expected to launch in September 2024, the iPhone 16 will include both the A18 chip and the next-generation M4 chip for Mac, a combination that could “significantly increase the number of built-in AI computing cores”, according to the Taiwanese website Economic Daily News.

Taiwan produces over 60% of the world’s semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced ones, meaning local news sources are likely to be the ones to break this sort of detail on upcoming releases. Plus, iOS 18 is already largely assumed to see Apple catching up to Google when it comes to generative AI, so it tracks that the next generation of Apple smartphones would harness that AI power.

Although Apple hasn’t been at the forefront of the AI boom over the last couple of years, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed in a recent earnings call, as reported by Trusted Reviews, that the company was working on generative AI. What’s more, he stated that the product of that focus would be publicly revealed in 2024 – perhaps in the iPhone release scheduled for later this year.

In addition, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in November that consumers shouldn’t expect major hardware updates to the iPhone 16, with the focus instead being on the software updates brought in with iOS 18. Not only would this result in new features, but also major performance and security boosts.

iOS 18 will roll out to older iPhones but it’s also rumoured that some features will be exclusive to the iPhone 16 – perhaps with AI capabilities among them. If such features relied on a brand-new advanced neural engine that’s the result of the combined efforts of the A18 chip and the next-generation M4 chip, for example, this would account for why some features are limited to the newer model.

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