An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: A key supplier to the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies is building a $20 million supercomputer with buzzy chipmaker Nvidia to speed deployment of artificial intelligence capabilities across the U.S. federal government, the MITRE think tank said Tuesday. MITRE, a federally funded, not-for-profit research organization that has supplied U.S. soldiers and spies with exotic technical products since the 1950s, says the project could improve everything from Medicare to taxes. "There's huge opportunities for AI to make government more efficient," said Charles Clancy, senior vice president of MITRE. "Government is inefficient, it's bureaucratic, it takes forever to get stuff done. ... That's the grand vision, is how do we do everything from making Medicare sustainable to filing your taxes easier?" [...] The MITRE supercomputer will be based in Ashburn, Va., and should be up and running late this year. [...] Clancy said the planned supercomputer will run 256 Nvidia graphics processing units, or GPUs, at a cost of $20 million. This counts as a small supercomputer: The world's fastest supercomputer, Frontier in Tennessee, boasts 37,888 GPUs, and Meta is seeking to build one with 350,000 GPUs. But MITRE's computer will still eclipse Stanford's Natural Language Processing Group's 68 GPUs, and will be large enough to train large language models to perform AI tasks tailored for government agencies. Clancy said all federal agencies funding MITRE will be able to use this AI "sandbox." "AI is the tool that is solving a wide range of problems," Clancy said. "The U.S. military needs to figure out how to do command and control. We need to understand how cryptocurrency markets impact the traditional banking sector. ... Those are the sorts of problems we want to solve."

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Pam Belluck reports via the New York Times: Scientists are proposing a new way of understanding the genetics of Alzheimer's that would mean that up to a fifth of patients would be considered to have a genetically caused form of the disease. Currently, the vast majority of Alzheimer's cases do not have a clearly identified cause. The new designation, proposed in a study published Monday, could broaden the scope of efforts to develop treatments, including gene therapy, and affect the design of clinical trials. It could also mean that hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone could, if they chose, receive a diagnosis of Alzheimer's before developing any symptoms of cognitive decline, although there currently are no treatments for people at that stage. The new classification would make this type of Alzheimer's one of the most common genetic disorders in the world, medical experts said. "This reconceptualization that we're proposing affects not a small minority of people," said Dr. Juan Fortea, an author of the study and the director of the Sant Pau Memory Unit in Barcelona, Spain. "Sometimes we say that we don't know the cause of Alzheimer's disease," but, he said, this would mean that about 15 to 20 percent of cases "can be tracked back to a cause, and the cause is in the genes." The idea involves a gene variant called APOE4. Scientists have long known that inheriting one copy of the variant increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's, and that people with two copies, inherited from each parent, have vastly increased risk. The new study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, analyzed data from over 500 people with two copies of APOE4, a significantly larger pool than in previous studies. The researchers found that almost all of those patients developed the biological pathology of Alzheimer's, and the authors say that two copies of APOE4 should now be considered a cause of Alzheimer's -- not simply a risk factor. The patients also developed Alzheimer's pathology relatively young, the study found. By age 55, over 95 percent had biological markers associated with the disease. By 65, almost all had abnormal levels of a protein called amyloid that forms plaques in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer's. And many started developing symptoms of cognitive decline at age 65, younger than most people without the APOE4 variant.

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At the 27th annual Milken Institute Global Conference on Monday, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap said today's ChatGPT chatbot "will be laughably bad" compared to what it'll be capable of a year from now. "We think we're going to move toward a world where they're much more capable," he added. Business Insider reports: Lightcap says large language models, which people use to help do their jobs and meet their personal goals, will soon be able to take on "more complex work." He adds that AI will have more of a "system relationship" with users, meaning the technology will serve as a "great teammate" that can assist users on "any given problem." "That's going to be a different way of using software," the OpenAI exec said on the panel regarding AI's foreseeable capabilities. In light of his predictions, Lightcap acknowledges that it can be tough for people to "really understand" and "internalize" what a world with robot assistants would look like. But in the next decade, the COO believes talking to an AI like you would with a friend, teammate, or project collaborator will be the new norm. "I think that's a profound shift that we haven't quite grasped," he said, referring to his 10-year forecast. "We're just scratching the surface on the full kind of set of capabilities that these systems have," he said at the Milken Institute conference. "That's going to surprise us." You can watch/listen to the talk here.

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"With all the improvements in car safety over the decades, the recent addition of a plethora of high tech sensors and warnings comes with increased costs," writes longtime Slashdot reader smooth wombat. "And not just to have to have them on your car. Any time you get into an accident, even a minor one, it will most likely require a detailed examination of any sensors which may have been affected and their subsequent realignment, replacement, and calibration." CNN reports: Some vehicles require "dynamic calibration," which means, once the sensors and cameras are back in place, a driver needs to take the vehicle out on real roads for testing. With proper equipment attached the car can, essentially, recalibrate itself as it watches lane lines and other markers. It requires the car to be driven for a set distance at a certain speed but weather and traffic can create problems. "If you're in Chicago or L.A., good luck getting to that speed," said [Hami Ebrahimi, chief commercial officer at Caliber] "or if you're in Seattle or Chicago or New York, with snow, good luck picking up all the road markings." More commonly, vehicles need "static calibration," which can be done using machinery inside a closed workshop with a flat, level floor. Special targets are set up around the vehicle at set distances according to instructions from the vehicle manufacturer. "The car [views] those targets at those specific distances to recalibrate the world into the car's computer," Ebrahimi said. These kinds of repairs also demand buildings with open space that meet requirements including specific colors and lighting. And it requires special training for employees to perform these sorts of recalibrations, he said "The change that we've seen in the last five years is greater than we've seen, probably, in the last five decades," said Todd Dillender, chief operating officer of Caliber Collision, one of the biggest auto body repair companies in the United States with more than 1,700 locations across 41 states. [...] With a rapidly changing industry, qualified auto body repair technicians are in short supply, just as they are in the engine repair business. That's also led to upward pressure on pay in the industry as technicians have to be highly qualified and educated, Dillender said. That's good for people who work in the industry, of course, but tougher for those who pay, and for the insurance companies who, in turn, pay for the repairs. A new study from consumer automotive group AAA says the cost to fix sensors and cameras in new vehicles "now accounts for more than a third of the post-crash repair costs," reports CNN. However, "no one, including AAA, recommends not getting these features because of repair costs," since many of them can cut crash rates in half and improve a car's overall safety. "They're not going to prevent everything," said Greg Brannon, director of automotive engineering at AAA. "And when you are in a crash, there are additional costs so it's sort of the old 'there's no free ride' when it comes to these things."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Amazon plans to start flying delivery drones in Arizona this year -- but don't count on them to bring you a refreshing drink on a hot day. The hexacopter can't operate when temperatures top 104 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40 degrees Celsius, the company says, and average daily highs exceed that for three months of the year in Tolleson, the city outside Phoenix where Amazon is preparing to offer aerial deliveries from inside a 7.5-mile radius. The drones can't help with midnight snacks either, because they'll be grounded after sunset. Potentially being inoperable for a quarter of the year might make launching drone deliveries in Tolleson and neighboring desert communities seem like an odd choice. It's far from the first challenge faced by Amazon's much-delayed drone project. The unit is years behind its goals of flying items to customers in under an hour on a regular basis, and a one-time target of 500 million deliveries by 2030 seems distant. Amazon Prime Air has completed just thousands of deliveries, falling behind rivals; Alphabet subsidiary Wing has notched hundreds of thousands of delivery flights and Walmart more than 20,000. In the California wine country town of Lockeford, where Amazon initially launched drone deliveries, some residents told WIRED last year that they ordered only because Amazon lured them with gift cards. In Arizona, it could be discouraging not being able to rely on drones during those hours when one might not want to venture too far from the comfort of air conditioning. [...] That temperature and other environmental conditions could ground or hamper the drone industry has been known for years. A team from University of Calgary's geography department estimated that on average across the world, drones with limitations similar to Amazon's, including from weather and daylight, would be limited to flying about 2 hours a day. In the world's 100 most populous cities, the average daily flight time would be 6 hours. "Weather is an important and poorly resolved factor that may affect ambitions to expand drone operations," they wrote in a study published in 2021. Heat, in particular, forces motors to work harder to keep drones aloft, and their batteries are only so powerful.

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Wayve, a UK-based AI firm focused on developing self-driving car technology, has secured a record $1.05 billion in funding, with Microsoft and Nvidia participating in the round led by SoftBank. According to the BBC, this investment is the largest for an AI company in Europe. The BBC reports: Wayve says the funding will allow it to help build the autonomous cars of the future. [...] Wayve is developing technology intended to power future self-driving vehicles by using what it calls "embodied AI." Unlike AI models carrying out cognitive or generative tasks such as answering questions or creating pictures, this new technology interacts with and learns from real-world surroundings and environments. "[The investment] sends a crucial signal to the market of the strength of the UK's AI ecosystem, and we look forward to watching more AI companies here thrive and scale," said Wayve head Alex Kendall.

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For the second time, the disgraced former CEO of Theranos has had her federal prison sentence shortened. In July, it was reduced by two years. Now, 40-year-old Holmes is scheduled for release on August 16, 2032 instead of December 29, 2032 -- a reduction of more than four months. The Guardian reports: People incarcerated in the U.S. can have their sentences shortened for good conduct and for completing rehabilitation programs, such as a substance abuse program. The latest reduction of Holmes's sentence still meets federal sentencing guidelines. Those guidelines mandate that people convicted of federal offenses must serve at least 85% of their sentence, regardless of reductions for good behavior. In 2022, Holmes was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison after being convicted on four counts of defrauding investors. She was also ordered to pay $452m in restitution to those she defrauded, but a judge delayed those payments due to Holmes's "limited financial resources." Holmes's lawyers have already begun attempts to get her conviction overturned. Oral arguments for her appeal are set to begin on June 11 in a federal appeals court in San Francisco, California, NBC News reported.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In a major shake-up of its chip roadmap, Apple has announced a new M4 processor for today's iPad Pro refresh, barely six months after releasing the first MacBook Pros with the M3 and not even two months after updating the MacBook Air with the M3. Apple says the M4 includes "up to" four high-performance CPU cores, six high-efficiency cores, and a 10-core GPU. Apple's high-level performance estimates say that the M4 has 50 percent faster CPU performance and four times as much graphics performance. Like the GPU in the M3, the M4 also supports hardware-accelerated ray-tracing to enable more advanced lighting effects in games and other apps. Due partly to its "second-generation" 3 nm manufacturing process, Apple says the M4 can match the performance of the M2 while using just half the power. As with so much else in the tech industry right now, the M4 also has an AI focus; Apple says it's beefing up the 16-core Neural Engine (Apple's equivalent of the Neural Processing Unit that companies like Qualcomm, Intel, AMD, and Microsoft have been pushing lately). Apple says the M4 runs up to 38 trillion operations per second (TOPS), considerably ahead of Intel's Meteor Lake platform, though a bit short of the 45 TOPS that Qualcomm is promising with the Snapdragon X Elite and Plus series. The M3's Neural Engine is only capable of 18 TOPS, so that's a major step up for Apple's hardware. Apple's chips since 2017 have included some version of the Neural Engine, though to date, those have mostly been used to enhance and categorize photos, perform optical character recognition, enable offline dictation, and do other oddities. But it may be that Apple needs something faster for the kinds of on-device large language model-backed generative AI that it's expected to introduce in iOS and iPadOS 18 at WWDC next month. A separate report from the Wall Street Journal says Apple is developing a custom chip to run AI software in datacenters. "Apple's server chip will likely be focused on running AI models, also known as inference, rather than in training AI models, where Nvidia is dominant," reports Reuters. Further reading: Apple Quietly Kills the Old-school iPad and Its Headphone Jack

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The Pixel 8A is officially here. The 8A gets Google's latest processor, adds a bunch of new AI features, and still starts at $499 in the US. But the very best news is that the 8A adopts the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro's seven years of software support, which is just unheard of in a midrange phone. From a report: The 8A retains the same general shape and size as its predecessor. But its 6.1-inch screen gets a couple of significant updates: the top refresh rate is now 120Hz, up from 90Hz, and the panel gets up to 40 percent brighter, up to 2,000 nits in peak brightness mode. They're important upgrades, especially since the 8A's main competition in the US, the OnePlus 12R, comes with an excellent display. It comes with the same generative AI photo and video features that made a splash on the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, including Best Take, Magic Editor, and Audio Magic Eraser. Circle to Search is also available, and the 8A will be able to run Google's mobile-optimized on-device AI model, Gemini Nano. As on the Pixel 8, it'll be a developer option delivered via feature drop. Other specs are either unchanged or slightly boosted compared to the last generation. There's still 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, though there's now a 256GB option. Camera hardware is unchanged from the 7A, including a stabilized 64-megapixel main sensor. There's an IP67 rating, consistent with the 7A, and battery capacity is a little higher at 4,492mAh compared to 4,385mAh. Wireless charging is available via Qi 1.3 at up to 7.5W -- no Qi2 here.

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Nintendo has said it will finally announce its Switch successor console "within this fiscal year," so at some point before March 31, 2025. From a report: In a statement published to X / Twitter, Shuntaro Furukawa, President of Nintendo, confirmed the new console as Nintendo published its financial report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024. Furukawa also confirmed a Nintendo Direct for this June, but said there will be no mention of the Switch successor during that presentation. Instead, it will focus on Switch games for the latter half of 2024.

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The GNOME Foundation today published their 2023 annual report that outlines their accomplishments as well as a look at the finances...

Asus on Tuesday said that it would announce its first 'AI PC' based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite system-on-chips later this month. The new laptop is set to be introduced at the Next Level. AI Incredible virtual launch event on May 20.

The launch of Asustek's new Vivobook S 15 will be hosted by Asus and will be joined by representatives of Qualcomm and Microsoft, who will reveal how they collaborated with PC maker to develop the first notebook based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite processors. These new SoCs promise to have a significant impact on the PC market in the coming quarters as they are based on the Arm instruction set architecture and are expected to bring together high performance, on-device AI acceleration, and long battery life. 

Qualcomm itself calls systems powered by its Snapdragon processors as AI PCs, which is exactly how Asus calls it Vivobook S15 as well. Meanwhile, the only things we know about the machine for now is that it will be based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus processors with 12 or 10 Oryon CPU cores (originally developed by Nuvia), a high-end Adreno GPU, and a 45 TOPS NPU; will come in a metallic chassis, and will feature a 15-inch display.

"The launch event, which will feature a collaboration between Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Asus, celebrates the first of the new-era Asus AI PCs, which are set to redefine the very fabric of computing," a statement by Asus reads. "The new laptop will usher in a new era of Asus AI PCs, breaking traditional boundaries and harnessing advanced AI capabilities. With comprehensive support for the latest AI functionality from Asus and Microsoft, it offers personalized AI experiences tailored to individual requirements."

Asus is also scheduled showcase its Vivobook laptops based on Qualcomm's processors at Computex in June. Actual systems will be available later this year.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating whether Boeing failed to complete required inspections on 787 Dreamliner planes and whether Boeing employees falsified aircraft records, the agency said this week. The investigation was launched after an employee reported the problem to Boeing management, and Boeing informed the FAA. "The FAA has opened an investigation into Boeing after the company voluntarily informed us in April that it may not have completed required inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes," the FAA said in a statement provided to Ars today. The FAA said it "is investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records. At the same time, Boeing is reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet." The agency added that it "will take any necessary action -- as always -- to ensure the safety of the flying public." Boeing VP Scott Stocker, who leads the 787 Dreamliner program, described "misconduct" in an April 29 email to employees in South Carolina. Boeing provided a copy of the email to Ars. "After receiving the report, we quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people had been violating Company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed," Stocker wrote. "As you all know, we have zero tolerance for not following processes designed to ensure quality and safety. We promptly informed our regulator about what we learned and are taking swift and serious corrective action with multiple teammates."

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Along with introducing a new iPad Air and iPad Pro during its Let Loose event, Apple quietly killed its ninth-gen iPad -- also known as the last iPad with a headphone jack. From a report: The 10th-gen iPad is now the sole entry-level iPad in Apple's official lineup and, as such, has received a $100 price cut. Released in late 2022, the 10th-generation iPad arrived starting at $449, or about $120 more than base entry-level iPads from previous years. Apple justified the price increase with new iPad Air-like features, like a 10.9-inch screen and USB-C support.

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In what appears to be a mistake or a jump of the gun by ASUS, they have seemingly published a list of specifications for one of its key notebooks that all but allude to the next generation of AMD's mobile processors. While we saw AMD toy with a new nomenclature for their Phoenix silicon (Ryzen 7040 series), it seems as though AMD is once again changing things around where their naming scheme for processors is concerned.

The ASUS listing, which has now since been deleted, but as of writing is still available through Google's cache, highlights a model that is already in existence, the VivoBook S 16 OLED (M5606), but is listed with an unknown AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 170 processor. Which, based on its specificiations, is certainly not part of the current Hawk Point (Phoenix/Phoenix 2) platform.

The cache on Google shows the ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED with a Ryzen AI 9 HX 170 Processor

While it does happen in this industry occasionally, what looks like an accidental leak by ASUS on one of their product pages has unearthed an unknown processor from AMD. This first came to our attention via a post on Twitter by user @harukaze5719. While we don't speculate on rumors, we confirmed this ourselves by digging through Google's cache. Sure enough, as the image above from Google highlights, it lists a newly unannounced model of Ryzen mobile processor. Under the listing via the product compare section for the ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED (M5606) notebook, it is listed with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 170, which appears to be one of AMD's upcoming Zen 5-based mobile chips codenamed Strix Point.

So with the seemingly new nomenclature that AMD has gone with, it has a clear focus on AI, or rather Ryzen AI, by including it in the name. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 170 looks set to be a 12C/24T Zen 5 mobile variant, with their Ryzen AI NPU or similar integrated within the chip. Given that Microsoft has defined that only processors with an NPU with 45 TOPS of performance or over constitute being considered an 'AI PC', it's likely the Xilinx (now AMD Xilinx) based NPU will meet these requirements as the listing states the chip has up to 77 TOPS of AI performance available. The HX series is strikingly similar to AMD's (and Intel's) previous HX naming series for their desktop replacement SKUs for laptops, so assuming any of the details of ASUS's error are correct, then this is presumably a very high-end, high-TDP part.

AMD Laptop Roadmap from Zen 2 in 2019 to Zen 5 on track for release in 2024

We've known for some time that AMD plans to release AMD's Zen 5-based Strix Point line-up sometime in 2024. Given the timing of Computex 2024, which is just over four weeks away, we still don't quite have the full picture of Zen 5's performance and its architectural shift over Zen 4. AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su also confirmed that Zen 5 will come with enhanced RDNA graphics within the Strix Point SoC by stating "Strix combines our next-gen Zen 5 core with enhanced RDNA graphics and an updated Ryzen AI engine to significantly increase the performance, energy efficiency, and AI capabilities of PCs,"

While it's entirely possible as we lead up to Computex 2024 that AMD is prepared to announce more details about Zen 5, nothing is confirmed. We do know that the CEO of AMD, Dr. Lisa Su is scheduled to deliver the opening keynote of the show, Dr. Lisa Su unveiled their Zen 4 microarchitecture at Computex 2022 during AMD's keynote and even unveiled their 3D V-Cache stacking, which we know today as the Ryzen X3D CPUs back at Computex 2021.

With that in mind, AMD and Dr. Lisa Su love to announce new products and architectures at Computex, so we just have to wait until the beginning of next month. How AMD denotes the nomenclature for the upcoming Zen 5 mobile and desktop processors remains to be seen, but hopefully, all will be revealed soon. Regarding the ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED (M5606), we currently don't know any of the other specifications at this time. Still, we expect them to be available once AMD has updated us with information on Zen 5 and Strix Point.

Setting things up for what is certainly to be an exciting next few months in the world of CPUs and SoCs, Apple this morning has announced their next-generation M-series chip, the M4. Introduced just over six months after the M3 and the associated 2023 Apple MacBook family, the M4 is going to start its life on a very different track, launching alongside Apple’s newest iPad Pro tablets. With their newest chip, Apple is promising class-leading performance and power efficiency once again, with a particular focus on machine learning/AI performance.

The launch of the M4 comes as Apple’s compute product lines have become a bit bifurcated. On the Mac side of matters, all of the current-generation MacBooks are based on the M3 family of chips. On the other hand, the M3 never came to the iPad family – and seemingly never will. Instead, the most recent iPad Pro, launched in 2022, was an M2-based device, and the newly-launched iPad Air for the mid-range market is also using the M2. As a result, the M3 and M4 exist in their own little worlds, at least for the moment.

Given the rapid turn-around between the M3 and M4, we’ve not come out of Apple’s latest announcement expecting a ton of changes from one generation to the next. And indeed, details on the new M4 chip are somewhat limited out of the gate, especially as Apple publishes fewer details on the hardware in its iPads in general. Coupled with that is a focus on comparing like-for-like hardware – in this case, M4 iPads to M2 iPads – so information is thinner than I’d like to have. None the less, here’s the AnandTech rundown on what’s new with Apple’s latest M-series SoC.

Apple M-Series (Vanilla) SoCs
SoC	M4	M3	M2
CPU Performance	4-core	4-core	4-core (Avalanche) 16MB Shared L2
CPU Efficiency	6-core	4-core	4-core (Blizzard) 4MB Shared L2
GPU	10-Core Same Architecture as M3	10-Core New Architecture - Mesh Shaders & Ray Tracing	10-Core 3.6 TFLOPS
Display Controller	2 Displays?	2 Displays	2 Displays
Neural Engine	16-Core 38 TOPS (INT8?)	16-Core 18 TOPS	16-Core 15.8 TOPS
Memory Controller	LPDDR5X-7700 8x 16-bit CH 120GB/sec Total Bandwidth (Unified)	LPDDR5-6400 8x 16-bit CH 100GB/sec Total Bandwidth (Unified)	LPDDR5-6400 8x 16-bit CH 100GB/sec Total Bandwidth (Unified)
Max Memory Capacity	24GB?	24GB	24GB
Encode/ Decode	8K H.264, H.265, ProRes, ProRes RAW, AV1 (Decode)	8K H.264, H.265, ProRes, ProRes RAW, AV1 (Decode)	8K H.264, H.265, ProRes, ProRes RAW
USB	USB4/Thunderbolt 3 ? Ports	USB4/Thunderbolt 3 2x Ports	USB4/Thunderbolt 3 2x Ports
Transistors	28 Billion	25 Billion	20 Billion
Mfc. Process	TSMC N3E	TSMC N3B	TSMC N5P

At a high level, the M4 features some kind of new CPU complex (more on that in a second), along with a GPU that seems to be largely lifted from the M3 – which itself was a new GPU architecture. Of particular focus by Apple is the neural engine (NPU), which is still a 16-core design, but now offers 38 TOPS of performance. And memory bandwidth has been increased by 20% as well, helping to keep the more powerful chip fed.

One of the few things we can infer with a high degree of certainty is the manufacturing process being used here. Apple’s description of a “second generation 3nm process” lines up perfectly in timing with TSMC’s second-generation 3nm process, N3E. The enhanced version of their 3nm process node is a bit of a sidegrade to the N3B process used by the M3 series of chips; N3E is not quite as dense as N3B, but according to TSMC it offers slightly better performance and power characteristics. The difference is close enough that architecture plays a much bigger role, but in the race for energy efficiency, Apple will take any edge they can get.

Apple’s position as TSMC’s launch-partner for new process nodes has been well-established over the years, and Apple appears to be the first company out the door launching chips on the N3E process. They will not be the last, however, as virtually all of TSMC’s high-performance customers are expected to adopt N3E over the next year. So Apple’s immediate chip manufacturing advantage, as usual, will only be temporary.

Apple’s early-leader status likely also plays into why we’re seeing the M4 now for iPads – a relatively low volume device at Apple – and not the MacBook lineup. At some point, TSMC’s N3E production capacity will catch up, and then-some. I won’t hazard a guess as to what Apple has planned for that lineup at that point, as I can’t really see Apple discontinuing M3 chips so quickly, but it also leaves them in an awkward spot having to sell M3 Macs when the M4 exists.

No die sizes have been quoted for the new chip (or die shots posted), but at 28 billion transistors in total, it’s only a marginally larger transistor count than the M3, indicating that Apple hasn’t thrown an excessive amount of new hardware into the chip. (ed: does anyone remember when 3B transistors was a big deal?)

M4 CPU Architecture: Improved ML Acceleration

Starting on the CPU side of things, we’re facing something of an enigma with Apple’s M4 CPU core design. The combination of Apple’s tight-lipped nature and lack of performance comparisons to the M3 means that we haven’t been provided much information on how the CPU designs compare. So if M4 represents a watershed moment for Apple’s CPU designs – a new Monsoon/A11 – or a minor update akin to the Everest CPU cores in A17, remains to be seen. Certainly we hope for the latter, but absent further details, we’ll work with what we do know.

Apple’s brief keynote presentation on the SoC noted that both the performance and efficiency cores implement improved branch predication, and in the case of performance cores, a wider decode and execution engine. However these are the same broad claims that Apple made for the M3, so this is not on its own indicative of a new CPU architecture.

What is unique to Apple’s M4 CPU claims however are “next-generation ML accelerators” for both CPU core types. This goes hand-in-hand with Apple’s broader focus on ML/AI performance in the M4, though the company isn’t detailing on just what these accelerators entail. With the NPU to do all of the heavy lifting, the purpose of AI enhancements on the CPU cores is less about total throughput/performance and more about processing light inference workloads mixed inside more general-purpose workloads without having to spend the time and resources firing up the dedicated NPU.

A grounded guess here would be that Apple has updated their poorly-documented AMX matrix units, which have been a part of the M series of SoCs since the beginning. However recent AMX versions already support common ML number formats like FP16, BF16, and INT8, so if Apple has made changes here, it’s not something simple and straightforward such as adding (more) common formats. At the same time if it is AMX, it’s a bit surprising to see Apple mention it at all, since they are otherwise so secretive about the units.

The other reasonable alternative would be that Apple has made some changes to their SIMD units within their CPUs to add common ML number formats, as these units are more directly accessible by developers. But at the same time, Apple has been pushing developers to use higher-level frameworks to begin with (which is how AMX is accessed), so this could really go either way.

In any case, whatever the CPU cores are that underpin M4, there is one thing that is certain: there are more of them. The full M4 configuration is 4 performance cores paired with 6 efficiency cores, 2 more efficiency cores than found on the M3. Cut-down iPad models get a 3P+6E configuration, while the higher-tier configurations get the full 4P+6E experience – so the performance impact there will likely be tangible.

Everything else held equal, the addition of two more efficiency cores shouldn’t massively improve on CPU performance over the M3’s 4P+4E configuration. But then Apple’s efficiency cores should not be underestimated, as even Apple’s efficiency cores are relatively powerful thanks to their use of out-of-order execution. Especially when fixed workloads can be held on the efficiency cores and not promoted to the performance cores, there’s a lot of room for energy efficiency gains.

Otherwise, Apple hasn’t published any detail performance graphs for the new SoC/CPU cores, so there’s little in the way of hard numbers to talk about. But the company is claiming that the M4 delivers 50% faster CPU performance than the M2. This presumably is for a multi-threaded workload that can leverage the M4’s CPU core count advantage. Alternatively, in their keynote Apple is also claiming that they can deliver M2 performance at half the power, which as a combination of process node improvements, architectural improvements, and CPU core count increases, seems like a reasonable claim.

As always, however, we’ll have to see how independent benechmarks pan out.

M4 GPU Architecture: Ray Tracing & Dynamic Caching Return

Compared to the CPU situation on the M4, the GPU situation is much more straightforward. Having just recently introduced a new GPU architecture in the M3 – a core type that Apple doesn’t iterate on as often as the CPU – Apple has all but confirmed that the GPU in the M4 is the same architecture that was found in the M3.

With 10 GPU cores, at a high level the configuration is otherwise identical to what was found on the M3. Whether that means the various blocks and caches are truly identical to the M3 remains to be seen, but Apple isn’t making any claims about the M4’s GPU performance that could be in any way interpreted as it being superior to the M3’s GPU. Indeed, the smaller form factor of the iPad and more limited cooling capabilities means that the GPU is going to be thermally constrained under any sustained workload to begin with, especially compared to what the M3 can do in an actively-cooled device like the 14-Inch MacBook Pro.

At any rate, this means the M4 comes with all of the major new architectural features introduced with the M3’s GPU: ray tracing, mesh shading, and dynamic caching. Ray tracing needs little introduction at this point, while mesh shading is a significant, next-generation means of geometry processing. Meanwhile, dynamic caching is Apple’s term for their refined memory allocation technique on M-series chips, which avoids over-allocating memory to the GPU from Apple’s otherwise unified memory pool.

GPU rendering aside, the M4 also gets the M3’s updated media engine block, which coming from the M2 is a relatively big deal for iPad uses. Most notably, the M3/M4’s media engine block added support for AV1 video decoding, the next-generation open video codec. And while Apple is more than happy to pay royalties on HEVC/H.265 to ensure it’s available within their ecosystem, the royalty-free AV1 codec is expected to take on a lot of significance and use in the coming years, leaving the iPad Pro in a better position to use the newest codec (or, at least, not have to inefficiently decode AV1 in software).

What is new to the M4 on the display side of matters, however, is a new display engine. The block responsible for compositing images and driving the attached displays on a device, Apple never gives this block a particularly large amount of attention, but when they do make updates to it, it normally comes with some immediate feature improvements.

The key change here seems to be enabling Apple’s new sandwiched “tandem” OLED panel configuration, which is premiering in the iPad Pro. The iPad’s Ultra Retina XDR display places two OLED panels directly on top of each other in order allow for a display that can cumulatively hit Apple’s brightness target of 1600 nits – something that a single one of their OLED panels is apparently incapable of doing. This in turn requires a display controller that knows how to manipulate the panels, not just driving a mirrored set of displays, but accounting for the performance losses that would stem from having one panel below another.

And while not immediately relevant to the iPad Pro, it will be interesting to see if Apple used this opportunity to increase the total number of displays the M4 can drive, as vanilla M-series SoCs have normally been limited to 2 displays, much to the consternation of MacBook users. The fact that the M4 can drive the tandem OLED panels and an external 6K display on top of that is promising, but we’ll see how this translates to the Mac ecosystem if and when the M4 lands in a Mac.

M4 NPU Architecture: Something New, Something Faster

Arguably Apple’s biggest focus with the M4 SoC is the company’s NPU, otherwise known as their neural engine. The company has been shipping a 16-core design since the M1 (and smaller designs on the A-series chips for years before that), each generation delivering a modest increase in performance. But with the M4 generation, Apple says they are delivering a much bigger jump in performance.

Still a 16-core design, the M4 NPU is rated for 38 TOPS, just over twice that of the 18 TOPS neural engine in the M3. And coincidentally, only a few TOPS more than the neural engine in the A17. So as a baseline claim, Apple is pitching the M4 NPU as being significantly more powerful than what’s come in the M3, never mind the M2 that powers previous iPads – or going even farther back, 60x faster than the A11’s NPU.

Unfortunately, the devil is (once again) in the details here as Apple isn’t listing the all-important precision information – whether this figure is based on INT16, INT8, or even INT4 precision. As the precision de jure for ML inference right now, INT8 is the most likely option, especially as this is what Apple quoted for the A17 last year. But freely mixing precisions, or even just not disclosing them, is headache-inducing to say the least. And it makes like-for-like specification comparisons difficult.

In any case, even if most of this performance improvement comes from INT8 support versus INT16/FP16 support, the M4 NPU is slated to deliver significant performance improvements to AI performance, similar to what’s already happened with the A17. And as Apple was one of the first chip vendors to ship a consumer SoC with what we now recognize as an NPU, the company isn’t afraid to beat its chest a bit on the matter, especially comparing it to what is going on in the PC realm. Especially as Apple’s offering is a complete hardware/software ecosystem, the company has the advantage of being able mold their software around using their own NPU, rather than waiting for the killer app to be invented for it.

M4 Memory: Adopting Faster LPDDR5X

Last, but certainly not least, the M4 SoC is also getting a notable improvement in its memory capabilities. Given the memory bandwidth figures Apple is quoting for the M4 – 120GB/second – all signs point to them finally adopting LPDDR5X for their new SoC.

The mid-generation update to the LPDDR5 standard, LPDDR5X allows for higher memory clockspeeds than LPDDR5, which topped out at 6400 MT/second. While LPDDR5X is available at speeds up to 8533 MT/second right now (and faster speeds to come), based on Apple’s 120GB/second figure for the M4, this puts the memory clockspeed at roughly LPDDR5X-7700.

Since the M4 is going into an iPad first, for the moment we don’t have proper idea of its maximum memory capacity. The M3 could house up to 24GB of memory, and while it’s highly unlikely Apple has regressed here, there’s also no sign whether they’ve been able to increase it to 32GB, either. In the meantime, the iPads Pro will all either come with 8GB or 16GB of RAM, depending on the specific model.

2024 M4 iPad Pros: Coming Next Week

Wrapping things up, in traditional Apple fashion, prospective tablet buyers will get the chance to see the M4 in action sooner than later. The company has already opened up pre-orders for the new iPad Pros, with the first deliveries slated to take place next week, on May 15^th.

Apple is offering two sizes of the 2024 iPad Pro: 11 inches and 13 inches. Screen size aside, both sizes are getting access to the same M4 and memory configurations. 256GB/512GB models get a 3P+6E core CPU configuration and 8GB of RAM, meanwhile the 1TB and 2TB models get a fully-enabled M4 SoC with a 4P+6E CPU configuration and 16GB of RAM. The GPU configuration on both models is identical, with 10 GPU cores.

Pricing starts at $999 for the 256GB 11-inch model and $1299 for the 256GB 13-inch model. Meanwhile a max-configuration 13-inch model with 2TB of storage, Apple’s nano-texture matte display, and cellular capabilities will set buyers back a cool $2599.

Financial Times Alphaville: Look, we know we write a lot about Jane Street, but it's a fascinating place, and people seem interested in it. So it was hard to resist writing about the trading shop entering the mobile phone game space (kinda). Back in 2013 Jane Street developed a card game called "Figgie," which it made to simulate open outcry trading, teach trading nous, and generally burnish its reputation for quirkiness -- de rigueur in the industry. All you need are 40 cards from a normal deck, and the rules have been public for a while. During Covid, Jane Street made a virtual version for remote interns. Now it's a mobile game that's publicly available on the official Apple and Google app stores.

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Motional, the autonomous vehicle startup borne out of a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai and automotive supplier Aptiv, will pause its commercial operations and delay plans to launch a driverless taxi service as it undergoes a restructuring, TechCrunch reported Tuesday. From a report: The aim is make progress on the core technology and the business model, while preserving capital, according to sources familiar with the changes. Motional has pushed its plan to launch a commercial driverless robotaxi service with its second-generation AV -- the Hyundai Ioniq 5 -- to 2026, two years later than planned. The company told employees Tuesday during an all-hands meeting that the changes will include layoffs, but did not provide a figure of how many people would be affected, according to sources who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity. Motional began notifying employees if they were laid off shortly after the meeting ended. The company employed more than 1,300 people prior to a 5% cut in workforce in March 2024. Motional will halt its commercial operations, which today includes taxi rides in autonomous Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles in Las Vegas via the Uber and Lyft network. The company will also end deliveries for Uber Eats customers in Santa Monica using its autonomous vehicles. A human safety operator is behind the wheel in all of its commercial operations.

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Microsoft has deployed a generative AI model entirely divorced from the internet, saying US intelligence agencies can now safely harness the powerful technology to analyze top-secret information. From a report: It's the first time a major large language model has operated fully separated from the internet, a senior executive at the US company said. Most AI models including OpenAI's ChatGPT rely on cloud services to learn and infer patterns from data, but Microsoft wanted to deliver a truly secure system to the US intelligence community. Spy agencies around the world want generative AI to help them understand and analyze the growing amounts of classified information generated daily, but must balance turning to large language models with the risk that data could leak into the open -- or get deliberately hacked. Microsoft has deployed the GPT4-based model and key elements that support it onto a cloud with an "air-gapped" environment that is isolated from the internet, said William Chappell, Microsoft's chief technology officer for strategic missions and technology.

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