Apple Goes Bigger on AI. New Mac Mini and Mac Studio Can Run Powerful Models On-Device.

Apple is upgrading two of its most powerful desktop computers as the company moves further in implementing artificial intelligence into its products, unveiling new Mac Mini and Mac Studio models designed to run increasingly sophisticated AI models directly on the device.

The new computers, announced Tuesday, arrive just weeks before Apple is expected to introduce its next generation of iPhones. Apple said the new machines take advantage of its custom silicon architecture, including neural engines specifically designed to accelerate machine learning tasks and a unified memory system that allows different parts of the processor to access the same pool of memory.

"With these frameworks and new chips, developers can run and fine-tune large AI models locally on their Mac," Apple said in announcing the computers. The Mac Mini is getting two new processor options, the M6 and M5 Pro, with the M6 making its debut as Apple's first computer chip manufactured using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s 2-nanometer process.

That marks a significant jump from the previous Mac Mini lineup, which offered M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max processors. Apple is emphasizing AI performance as one of the biggest reasons to upgrade. The company said a Mac Mini equipped with the M5 Pro can process large language model prompts as much as 8.5 times faster than older Pro versions of the desktop.

The additional performance, however, comes with another price increase. The new Mac Mini will start at $899, $100 more than its previous starting price. That follows an earlier increase over the summer from $599, which Apple attributed to higher memory costs.

Mac Mini computers have found a new niche as relatively inexpensive machines for developers who want to run AI agents locally. Developers working with agent software such as OpenClaw have increasingly used dedicated Mac Minis rather than paying for continuous cloud computing resources.

At the higher end of Apple's desktop lineup, the Mac Studio is also receiving a major AI-focused overhaul. The Mac Studio has effectively become Apple's flagship standalone desktop after the company discontinued the Mac Pro earlier this year. New versions will be available with the M5 Max, which Apple says can run large language models nearly four times faster than its predecessor.

Customers looking for even more computing power can configure the Mac Studio with the M5 Ultra, currently Apple's most powerful processor. Apple is also introducing the ability to connect multiple M5 Ultra Mac Studios so they can operate together, combining their memory and computing resources.

The company says the configuration can handle trillion-parameter frontier AI models, potentially making the Mac Studio more attractive to AI researchers and developers working with models that would normally require specialized servers or cloud infrastructure.

The pricing reflects that positioning. Mac Studio models equipped with the M5 Max will continue to start at $2,499. The M5 Ultra version will begin at $5,499, up from the $5,299 starting price of the previous Ultra model, which used the older M3 Ultra processor.