Neural Engine

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Neural Engine is a series of AI accelerators designed for machine learning by Apple. The first SoC including Neural Engine is the A11 Bionic, used in iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X, introduced in 2017.^[1] Since then, every Apple A-series SoC has included a Neural Engine. In 2020, Apple introduced the Apple M1 processor for its Mac computers^[2] which also uses a Neural Engine. Since then, every M-series processor has included a Neural Engine.^[3]

Apple has stated the Neural Engine in the M4 can perform 38 trillion operations per second (TOPS), an improvement over the 18 TOPS in the M3.^[4]

The Neural Engine is used for real-time AI-driven applications such as Face ID, Siri, and augmented reality (AR). It also handles computational photography features, including Smart HDR and Night Mode, by processing large amounts of sensor data for real-time image enhancements.^[5]

In 2024, Apple also introduced its Apple Intelligence AI suite to iPhone, iPad and Mac, which included features like improvements to Siri, creating images with 'Image Playground' and proofreading and correcting text with 'Writing Tools'.^[6]

The Neural Engine also provides high energy efficiency, allowing real-time AI tasks to be performed with minimal battery consumption.^[6] Its on-device processing ensures that sensitive tasks such as facial recognition and voice commands are handled locally, enhancing privacy by keeping user data secure.^[7]

The Neural Engine is fully integrated with Apple's Core ML framework, which allows developers to run machine learning models on-device. This integration supports applications like object recognition, natural language processing, and gesture detection.