Apple’s ambitious chip roadmap includes AI, glasses, and ‘advanced’ Macs

Macworld

While everyone is wondering what’s going on with Siri and what court will rule against Apple next, actual products are in the works deep within Apple itself, including work on the next-gen chips that will be in several products coming in the future.

According to a report this week by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the new chips include the M6 and M7 chips that will be used in the Mac lineup. Apple is expected to release the M5 chip in the MacBook Pro this November, so the M6 won’t appear until next year, and the M7 likely in 2027. Gurman also said that Apple is working on an “advanced Mac chip in development dubbed Sotra.” No details were provided on any of the upcoming chips.

2026 marks the 20th anniversary of the MacBook, and Apple reportedly has big plans for the M6 MacBook Pro, including a display update to OLED. Previous reports have said that the M6 will be a 2nm chip, but that the new production process could be more expensive to use than the current enhanced 3nm one. Along with an unpredictable tariff situation, it’s possible that the price of the MacBook Pro could increase next year, or the anniversary model could be delayed until 2027.

What’s more interesting are the chips Apple is making for some undisclosed future devices, which include processors for smart glasses along the lines of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. The chips for the glasses are reportedly based on the Apple Watch S-series chip, but modified to be more power efficient and be able to control the cameras that are installed in the glasses. Gurman says they won’t go into product until the end of 2026 or in 2027, which means an actual glasses product won’t appear for at least two years.

The Apple glasses appear to be a separate product line from the current Vision Pro. Gurman states that the idea is AR-focused, superimposing notifications and other helpful information into view, but he also cautions that “AR remains years away from being practical.” It’s possible that if Apple’s glasses aren’t AR-enabled, they will be like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which record video, take photos, play audio, and support voice functions.

Other new chips for Apple wearables include a chip codenamed Nevis for an Apple Watch with a camera, and a chip codenamed Glennie for camera-equipped AirPods. These products are scheduled for 2027.

Past reports have indicated that Apple is making servers specifically for the handling of AI processing, and Gurman reports that this project could be ready in 2027. The AI server chips could “have double, quadruple, or eight times the number of main processing and graphics cores as today’s M3 Ultra.” Many Apple Intelligence features utilize on-device processing, but for Apple to take further steps into implementing more complex AI features, it has to rely on cloud processing. Gurman states that these new servers would help Apple “catch up” to other AI services from Nvidia and Google.

Other chips in development include follow-ups to the C1 modem that debuted in the iPhone 16e, including the C2 for the high-end iPhones in 2026, and a “higher-end” C3 for 2027. Apple also continues to work on a sensor and chip system for monitoring blood glucose levels on the Apple Watch.