Apple M4 Max: the three nanometer chip that accelerates professional local AI

Published on May 18, 2026 | Translated from Spanish

Apple has introduced the M4 Max, a chip manufactured using a 3 nm process that integrates a 16-core neural engine. Capable of 38 trillion operations per second, it is designed to run artificial intelligence workloads directly on the device, without relying on the cloud. This promises to speed up complex tasks in professional environments.

Apple M4 Max chip glowing on a black circuit board, neural engine cores pulsing with blue light, 3 nm silicon wafer layers peeling back under a scanning electron microscope, local AI processing action showing real-time 3D rendering on a floating holographic interface, professional workstation with complex data graphs and code streams moving rapidly, cinematic engineering visualization, photorealistic metallic textures, dramatic side lighting, macro lens depth of field, technical illustration style

3 nm architecture and 16-core neural engine 🚀

The M4 Max uses a 3 nm process that optimizes performance per watt. Its 16-core NPU reaches 38 TOPS, accelerating large language models and image processing locally. The high-capacity unified memory allows handling extensive datasets. This approach reduces latency and improves privacy by avoiding external transfers of sensitive data.

The NPU that promises to make us forget the cloud (or so they say) 😅

With 38 trillion operations per second, the M4 Max's NPU can process more data than a caffeinated intern. Of course, local AI will still need you to remind it that it's not a magical assistant. Because, let's be honest, the cloud is slow, but at least it doesn't complain when you ask it to render a video at 3 in the morning.