Apple skips M6 Pro and Max chips to accelerate AI-focused M7 development

Here's Why Apple is Reportedly Skipping M6 Pro and M6 Max Chips

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple will be releasing a regular M6 chip, but it has no plans to offer higher-end M6 Pro and M6 Max chips. In his Power On newsletter today, he said the reason for this break in tradition is AI. "Apple had been planning major neural-processing upgrades for the M7 family and ultimately decided those improvements were important enough to justify accelerating the next generation rather than completing the M6 lineup," he explained. There won't be an M6 Ultra chip either, he said. A new 14-inch MacBook Pro with a base M6 chip will be released later this year, and then Apple plans to move on to releasing the base M7 chip in the first half of 2027, M7 Pro and M7 Max chips in late 2027, and an M7 Ultra chip in 2028. He said the M7 Ultra chip in particular "dramatically upgrades AI performance," and that it may power Apple Intelligence servers starting in 2029. "AI is no longer just another feature Apple's chips need to support," said Gurman. "It is now shaping how those products are designed and when they are shipped." The current M5 Pro and M5 Max chips launched in March, and Gurman still expects an M5 Ultra chip to debut in the Mac Studio as early as this year.

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It takes years to tape out a chip and bring it to market, with overall industry seismic shifts taking much less time. Nothing will demonstrate that better than the rumored six-month gap between the M6 processor debut and the AI-focused M7. Apple's chip lines have gradually become more AI-centric, and that will be the same in the future too. However, rather than sticking to an established release format, Apple's intending to skip ahead to the bits it wants the public to use. In Sunday's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman revives a late June report that the M6 Pro and M6 Max chips won't exist. Instead, it is putting the work into the development of AI-first chips for the M7 generation. The fall cycle will include the usual base chip release, consisting of the M6. But there won't be an M6 Pro, M6 Max, or even an M6 Ultra following months later. Apple's intended schedule is to instead bring the base M7 chip line a mere six months after the M6. That would make it a release in the first half of 2027. The M7 Pro and M7 Max are thought to arrive at the end of 2027. That will then be followed by the M7 Ultra sometime in 2028. Skipping to the good part Gurman doesn't really explain why Apple is moving to get M6 out of the way in favor of the M7 generation on Sunday. However, he did a better job doing so in June. The M6 will improve the memory bandwidth from 153 gigabytes per second in the M5 to a massive 200 gigabytes per second. That will be by introducing a new memory architecture, as well as boosting the Neural Engine and using 12 GPU cores instead of ten. While memory bandwidth is important, the M7 generation will have a much bigger focus on AI processing. This should help the prospective users of the M7 Pro, M7 Max, and M7 Ultra, who will have more complex workflows and could benefit from AI. Even in the M7, memory bandwidth will also be increased, going up to around 240 gigabytes per second in the base chip. The massive improvements in the M7 range are deemed by Apple to be sufficient enough to skip most of a chip generation.