Apple's Mac mini now starts at $899 with the new M6 chip, the first Apple silicon built on TSMC's 2-nanometer process, delivering roughly 4x the on-device AI performance of the outgoing M4 model.
Read the full story: Apple's Mac Mini Gets the First M6 Chip, Built for On-Device AI →
Transcript
Apple just put its newest, most advanced chip in its cheapest desktop. The M6 is Apple's first chip built on TSMC's 2 nanometer process, and it's landing in the Mac mini months before it reaches the iPhone. That's backwards from how Apple usually rolls out new silicon. The Neural Engine inside is a dual 16 core design, double the count from the last generation, and Apple says that's good for four times the AI performance of the outgoing M4 model. Why does a desktop need that much AI muscle? Because people are running autonomous AI agents locally now instead of paying for cloud inference every time a model runs. Apple stores reportedly sold out of the old Mac mini before this one even shipped. The price climbed to eight ninety nine, up from seven ninety nine. That's the cost of being early on the newest chip in the industry.