Apple will be releasing a regular M6 chip, but it has no plans to offer more powerful M6 Pro and M6 Max chips, according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, in his latest Power On newsletter. Gurman said the reason for Apple breaking away from its traditional processor pathway is AI.
“Apple had been planning major neural-processing upgrades for the M7 family and ultimately decided those improvements were important enough to justify accelerating the next generation rather than completing the M6 lineup,” he explained.
Don’t expect an M6 Ultra chip either, Gurman said.
As I recently reported, Apple has overhauled the next several years of its chip plans for the Mac. The next cycle should begin this fall with a familiar pattern: a base-level M6 chip. Under the traditional strategy, that processor would have been followed by M6 Pro and M6 Max variants — with an M6 Ultra eventually arriving for the company’s highest-end desktop computers.
For the first time, though, the company is skipping the high-end chips for a new generation. Instead of completing the M6 family with Pro, Max and Ultra variants, Apple is moving directly to M7. In fact, Apple started taping out the M7 — the stage where it finalizes a chip’s design — just six months after undertaking that process for the M6. That means that the M7 should arrive in the first half of 2027, followed by the M7 Pro and M7 Max at the end of 2027 and an M7 Ultra in 2028.
A new 14-inch MacBook Pro with a base M6 chip will be released later this year. Apple is planning to move on from the M6 lineup, releasing the base M7 chip in the first half of 2027. M7 Pro and M7 Max chips will debut in late 2027, with an M7 Ultra chip being ready in 2028.
He said the M7 Ultra chip in particular “dramatically upgrades AI performance,” and that it may power Apple Intelligence servers starting in 2029.
“AI is no longer just another feature Apple’s chips need to support,” said Gurman. “It is now shaping how those products are designed and when they are shipped.”