Advantage, Apple
Apple arguably has the best silicon development team in the world — at least, outside Arm. The chips used in iPhones and Macs lead the industry, generating performance per watt that no one out there can match. It’s a strategic advantage for Apple, which in itself can be seen as an advantage for the US on a national basis. A US company owns those designs, which seals one aspect of digital dominance.
With that in mind, it’s inevitable that Apple will want to maintain its focus on processor design. Doing so gives the company a competitive advantage while also propping up national security, at least to some extent.
If that is the case, then it is interesting that one of the new processors it is making is suitable for use in wearable devices — for Apple, that’s the AR glasses it has hoped to develop for years as it competes against Meta. Apple is also developing next-generation chips for Macs and iPhones, which is no surprise at all, and processor chips for Apple Intelligence servers. To some extent, the only surprise there is that the company is building a new low-power, high-performance processor capable of delivering the tough tasks required for spatial computing in spectacles.
