These are the best smartphone chips for AI

Apple doesn’t market its AI capabilities as aggressively as Qualcomm or MediaTek, but it has been quietly integrating AI into its chips for years. Take the M1 chip, for example. Launched back in 2020—before all the hype about AI—it can run Apple Intelligence effortlessly.

In fact, the M1 was Apple’s first real step into AI silicon, with an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) designed to handle machine learning tasks. But here’s the weird part: why iPhones from 2020 and later don’t support Apple Intelligence then?

Turns out, it’s all about hardware. In an interview, Apple’s Craig Federighi explained that RAM plays a key role in powering Apple Intelligence, and every device that supports these AI features has at least 8GB of RAM. And guess what? iPhone 15 Pro series is Apple’s first smartphone with 8GB of RAM. 

That brings us to Apple’s A18 Pro, the company’s most powerful AI chip yet. It continues Apple’s focus on efficiency and deep software integration rather than just raw AI performance numbers.

The Neural Engine in the A18 Pro now pushes over 35 trillion operations per second (TOPS)—a significant upgrade from 35 TOPS from last year’s A17 Pro. 

However, unlike Android chipmakers, Apple doesn’t allow developers to access its Neural Engine as freely. That means third-party apps can’t take full advantage of its AI capabilities—at least, not yet. And as more apps embrace on-device AI, that walled garden approach might start to feel like a limitation.

Qualcomm is leading the AI hardware race in the Android world, and its latest contender is the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

The 8 Elite packs what Qualcomm calls an AI Engine which is a comprehensive platform that includes multiple components working in tandem to deliver powerful AI performance. The AI Engine integrates the Hexagon NPU, CPU, GPU, and the Qualcomm Sensing Hub, combining their capabilities to handle diverse AI workloads efficiently.

The Hexagon NPU takes the load off the CPU and GPU, ensuring that AI features—like real-time translations or on-device photo enhancements—don’t slow the phone down. This allows AI-powered tasks to run in the background without impacting overall performance.

Qualcomm also integrates hardware-level security into its AI chip. The Secure Processing Unit works with the NPU to encrypt data, which is crucial as AI-powered assistants handle more personal information.

But it’s not just about AI. With the 8 Elite, Qualcomm also ditched the standard ARM Cortex cores in favor of its custom Oryon cores. The change gives Qualcomm an edge in terms of performance and efficiency. 

However, the real advantage of Qualcomm chips is the flexibility it provides to phone manufacturers. Unlike Apple’s tightly controlled AI ecosystem, Qualcomm’s approach gives manufacturers like Samsung, OnePlus, and Xiaomi the freedom to implement AI features in their own way.

Google’s Tensor G4 is less about raw power and more about AI-driven experiences. While it doesn’t match Qualcomm or MediaTek in terms of TOPS performance, it’s optimized for Google’s software, making it a key part of the Pixel 9 series.

Google designed the Tensor G4 with DeepMind to ensure it can run future AI models efficiently. This includes better memory bandwidth and improved power management. One of the biggest upgrades is multimodal Gemini Nano, allowing on-device AI to process multiple types of input simultaneously.

Tensor G4 can handle up to 45 tokens per second—meaning it can break down and process words, images, or voice inputs much faster than its predecessor. While that doesn’t make it the most powerful AI chip, it does make Google’s AI-powered features feel more responsive.

But Tensor’s biggest advantage is direct software integration. Google controls both the hardware and software, allowing Pixel phones to get AI features that other Android devices might not see for months (or ever). The trade-off? Tensor chips still lag behind in raw performance, so while they’re great for AI, they aren’t the best for gaming or high-performance tasks.

MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 is its most ambitious AI chip yet, and on paper, it’s ahead of the competition. It boasts over 50 TOPS of AI performance, technically beating both Apple and Qualcomm.

At the heart of this AI performance is MediaTek’s 8th Gen NPU. It’s the first mobile chip to support on-device LoRA training and high-quality video generation. That means AI models can adapt to individual users in real-time, rather than relying entirely on cloud processing.

MediaTek is also pushing something called the Dimensity Agentic AI Engine (DAE). It’s designed to make AI-powered apps more dynamic by allowing them to interact with third-party software and cloud services more seamlessly. This could reduce development time for AI applications to make advanced AI features more accessible across different apps.

 Globally, premium phones continue to favor Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips over Dimensity. The new Dimensity 9500 is mostly found in Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi devices, leaving MediaTek with limited reach in the flagship space. So we hope that more brands start taking MediaTek seriously at the high end.

Right now, AI in smartphones is still more about background improvements rather than game-changing new features. But as on-device AI models become more capable, having a smartphone with strong AI hardware could become more important.

For now, Snapdragon 8 Elite and Tensor G4 offer the most visible AI experiences, while Apple and MediaTek are pushing AI performance in their own ways. Whether any of this translates into a better smartphone experience depends on how software takes advantage of it.

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