Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI.
In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending data up to the cloud for processing).
Processing data at the edge also makes for the best possible user experience because of the complete independence of network connectivity and hence minimal latency.
If (and that's a big if) they keep their APIs open to run any kind of AI workload on their chips it's a strategy that I personally really really welcome as I don't want the AI future to be centralised in the hands of a few powerful cloud providers.
In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending data up to the cloud for processing).
Processing data at the edge also makes for the best possible user experience because of the complete independence of network connectivity and hence minimal latency.
If (and that's a big if) they keep their APIs open to run any kind of AI workload on their chips it's a strategy that I personally really really welcome as I don't want the AI future to be centralised in the hands of a few powerful cloud providers.