Apple unveils A20 Pro, first 2-nanometre smartphone chip

Apple unveiled the A20 Pro chip at its "Surprise and Shine" event on 9 September 2026, calling it the first 2-nanometre smartphone chip to reach high-volume production. Apple said the chip powers the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and the iPhone Duo, its first foldable phone.

The A20 Pro's Neural Engine now has 32 cores, up from its predecessor, after Apple added an extra engine. Apple said this doubles the chip's AI compute and improves efficiency, while adding new 8-bit floating point support.

The chip's CPU has six cores: two "supercores" that are 20% faster than before, plus four efficiency cores. All six include neural accelerators, Apple said.

The GPU moves to a new 7-core layout, with graphics up to 40% faster and twice the FP8 performance for running language models directly on the phone, according to Apple. Memory bandwidth rises 50%.

Apple said the A20 Pro delivers 40% more sustained performance than the A19 Pro and twice that of the A18 Pro. Apple described the chip as "the ultimate chip for running advanced on-device models", adding it has "the widest memory interface we've ever shipped in an iPhone."

The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999, and iPhone 18 Pro prices rise by $100 over the previous generation, according to MacRumors. Apple also announced new smartwatches and AirPods 5 at the event, and said the standard iPhone 18 will arrive in spring 2027, CNBC reported.

Apple has committed to producing some iPhone chips at TSMC's fabs in Arizona. The A20 Pro launch follows Apple's push to run AI processing on the device rather than in the cloud, as the company works to catch up in the broader AI race. In July, Apple briefly overtook Nvidia as the world's most valuable company.

The iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone Duo are set to ship with the A20 Pro, while the standard iPhone 18 will follow in spring 2027.