Goodbye to M6 Pro and M6 Max Chips: Apple Focuses on AI and M7 in 2027
Apple has profoundly revised its strategy for the Apple Silicon chips dedicated to Macs. A new report from Bloomberg reveals that the company does not intend to release high-end versions of the upcoming M6 chip. The course is set: after the launch of the base M6 model, the focus will immediately shift to the M7 range, with a significant change that marks an acceleration towards the integration of artificial intelligence directly on the hardware.
The M6 chip, according to the information that has emerged, has been tested on a new entry-level version of the MacBook Pro and is expected to debut by the end of this year. The expected improvements mainly focus on memory bandwidth, which should reach 200 GB/s, a significant increase from the current M5 chip's maximum of 153 GB/s. This increase is accompanied by a renewed memory architecture and an enhanced Neural Engine, the hardware component dedicated to processing AI operations. Apple has also planned performance improvements for all processing cores and specific optimizations for video encoding and decoding.
The M6 will also have updates on the GPU front, which has been redesigned and, in configurations tested internally, integrates up to 12 graphics cores, a step forward from the M5's maximum of 10 cores. This redesign aims to manage more effectively the simultaneous rendering requests generated by artificial intelligence, graphics, and other complex workloads. The base M6 is also set to equip entry-level models like the Mac mini, iMac, and future models of iPad Pro and iPad Air. A noteworthy aspect, according to previous unconfirmed rumors, would concern its production through a new 2-nanometer process.
The Strategic Shift Towards M7 Chips and Artificial Intelligence
Apple's decision not to release Pro and Max variants of the M6 chip represents an unprecedented choice. Since 2020, the year of the debut of Apple Silicon, every generation of processors has always included more powerful configurations intended for professional users. The M6 will be the first to break this tradition. The explanation lies in the new roadmap: the next "Pro" and "Max" chips will directly see the light with the M7 generation, expected next year.
The M7 line has indeed been primarily designed to implement significant advances in on-device AI processing. The base version of the M7 chip is expected in the first half of 2027, with a memory bandwidth that should rise to around 240 GB/s. The more powerful versions, M7 Pro and M7 Max, are scheduled for late 2027, while the M7 Ultra is expected to arrive in 2028. This reshuffling of the roadmap is a clear signal of Apple's commitment to accelerating the development of chips optimized for the intensive workloads of artificial intelligence and GPUs, repositioning future high-end MacBook Pro and Mac Studio models on these more advanced architectures.
Despite the focus on the M6 and M7, Apple continues to work on the M5 Ultra chip. The processor, identified by the code names Sotra D or H17D, is intended for a new version of the Mac Studio, which could be unveiled as early as this year. It is expected that the M5 Ultra will integrate about 36 CPU cores and 80 GPU cores, specifications that would make it one of the most powerful chips available in the mainstream market. The company has conducted tests on Mac Studio configurations with M5 Ultra capable of supporting up to 768 GB of unified memory, although the availability of components could represent a necessary compromise for the debut of these extreme configurations.