The newly launched iPhone 8[1], iPhone 8 Plus[2], and the iPhone X[3] are noticeably different-looking from the previous generation iPhone models. But it is what driving these new iPhone models that is arguably far more exciting and displays company's major ambitions. Apple says the new iPhone models - all three of them - are powered by the Apple A11 Bionic[4] SoC, its custom chip that features a 'neural engine' to handle machine learning or artificial intelligence based tasks, powering Face ID, Animoji, and other features.
Smartphone companies, including Apple[5] and Huawei[6], are increasingly placing bets on artificial intelligence for a range of new capabilities that were only a few years ago unimaginable. Huawei, for instance, recently announced Kirin 970[7], its own custom built chipset featuring "neural processing unit" that it claims will help accelerate image and voice recognition.
Apple took its time to reveal what it has in store, but if the demonstration onstage at the event this week is any indication, the company's ambitions with AI are far bigger than any of its rivals'. Here's everything it said about the A11 Bionic at the event.
Most powerful and smartest chip ever in a smartphone
Apple is not mincing word when it describes how powerful it thinks the A11 Bionic chip is. It's a six-core CPU design with two performance cores that are 25 percent faster than the company's A10 Fusion, which it has previously used in older iPhone generations.
The other four cores are for efficiency that are 70 percent faster than the A10 Fusion, it said. Coupled with these cores is a new, second generation performance controller that makes...