Apple's M5 Ultra is a four-die chip built for local AI.
Apple announced the M5 Ultra with a new Mac Studio. Its standout feature is up to 512GB of unified memory, aimed at running unusually large AI models on-device.
- What changed: M5 Ultra joins four dies through UltraFusion, Apple's first quad-die M-series design, with up to a 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU.
- The AI angle: It supports up to 512GB of unified memory and 1.2TB/s bandwidth. Apple says this can keep models with hundreds of billions of parameters on the machine.
- Availability: The chip is exclusive to the new Mac Studio. Preorders opened August 25; availability begins September 22, with 512GB configurations coming later.