Apple updates Mac mini and Mac Studio with M6 and M5 Ultra chips for AI development

New Chips for Mac Desktops

Apple announced new iterations of its Mac mini and Mac Studio desktops. These refreshed models introduce two new chips: the M6, which is the first 2nm chip in Apple's M-series lineup for Macs, and the M5 Ultra, positioned as the most powerful chip in the lineup for AI workloads.

Focus on AI Development

While the updates are primarily spec bumps without major new features, Apple is emphasizing the machines' utility for local AI inference and software development. This focus leverages the advantages of their unified memory architecture and fast CPUs and GPUs on their systems-on-a-chip.

Background on AI Popularity

The popularity of Mac mini and Mac Studio for AI inference increased following the release of macOS 26.2 in December. This update enabled low-latency communication between Thunderbolt 5 hosts for distributed AI inference using MLX, an open-source array framework designed to optimize machine learning workflows on M-series chips.

Distributed AI Inference

Both hobbyists and professional developers have been connecting multiple Mac minis or Mac Studios to run local large language models. This setup allows for inference on models larger than what a single mass-market device could handle, providing an alternative to specialized hardware with Nvidia GPUs.