Apple engineers made an important decision in 2017 that enabled the company to offer Apple Intelligence even in devices launched in 2020, an official said. In a podcast, senior company executives highlighted that the engineers responsible for designing the M1 chipset decided to add neural networks to make them ready for artificial intelligence (AI). This is notable because the M1 chipset was first launched in 2020, two years before the generative AI trend took hold.
Apple executive reveals key decision that made M1 chipsets AI-ready
In its latest episode, the Circuit Podcast invited Tim Millett, Apple’s vice president of platform architecture, and Tom Boger, senior director of Mac and iPad product marketing at Apple, to talk. The two discussed the company’s approach towards AI, integration of hardware, importance of architecture, and more.
Interestingly, officials revealed that Apple engineers knew this shortly after the first paper about neural networks was published in 2017. The same technology led to the development of Transformer Networks which is considered the foundation of Generative AI.
Officials highlighted that engineers have begun redesigning the company’s Neural Engine for the next generation of Apple silicon – the M1 chip. By the time the chipset debuted with the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini in 2020, the company could run neural networks on the processor. However, the company then did not have much use for neural networks and generative AI technology was still two years away.
As a takeaway, executives with M1 said, “We had the foresight to be able to see, and we’re paying attention to the trends and introducing it, knowing that it takes time to get the silicon out there Is.”
Notably, at the “It’s Glotime” event earlier this year, Apple announced that the Apple Intelligence will be compatible with the M1 chipset, bringing new features to the four-year-old hardware. The tech giant’s AI offering will now be rolled out to users globally in December. However, users in the European Union (EU) and China will not get it at launch due to regulatory hurdles.
