iPhone 16 may feature an upgraded neural engine to power iOS 18’s artificial intelligence features

Earlier this year, multiple reports suggested that iOS 18, the upcoming major update following iOS 17, would come with a host of AI-based generation features to better compete with industry giants like Google and Samsung.

Now, a new report from Economic Daily News suggests that may indeed be the case. According to the report, Apple’s next-generation chipsets M4 and A18 are expected to “significantly increase the number of built-in AI computing cores.”

The report added: “This year, not only will the AI ​​computing power of M3 and A17 processors be greatly enhanced, but the number and performance of AI computing cores and deployment rates of the new generation M4 and A18 processors will also be greatly increased.” The use of artificial intelligence in various product lines Applications will be greatly improved. “

It goes without saying that Apple has been working to improve the Neural Engine with every iPhone generation since its initial launch. As MacRumors points out, Apple’s Neural Engine core count has remained almost the same since the iPhone 12 models, but it’s a significant improvement compared to this time last year. For example, the iPhone 15 Pro’s A17 Pro chipset’s Neural Engine is twice as fast as the iPhone 14 Pro’s A16 Bionic.

In addition, it remains to be seen whether Apple’s much-talked-about artificial intelligence features will be implemented in older-generation models equipped with iOS 18 (including the iPhone 15 series), or whether it will decide to reserve these features exclusively for upcoming models.

That said, iOS 18 is expected to be released during the WWDC 2024 event in June. It remains to be seen how deeply Apple will integrate AI into its operating system, and competition is growing with companies like Google and Samsung using Gemini LLM to push AI heavily.