Trump announces 100% chip tariff as Apple ups U.S. investment
CUPERTINO, Calif. - Apple Inc. (AAPL), a prominent player in the Technology Hardware industry with a market capitalization of $3.54 trillion, has introduced the M3 Ultra, its most powerful chip to date, designed for the new Mac Studio. The M3 Ultra boasts the highest CPU and GPU performance in a Mac, doubling the Neural Engine cores and offering unprecedented levels of unified memory for a personal computer. According to InvestingPro analysis, Apple currently trades at a premium valuation with a P/E ratio of 37.8x, suggesting investors’ high expectations for the company’s innovative products.
The M3 Ultra chip features a 32-core CPU and an 80-core GPU, which Apple claims deliver up to 1.5 times the performance of the M2 Ultra and up to 1.8 times that of the M1 Ultra. The advanced graphics architecture includes dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading, and ray tracing, tailored to handle intense content creation and gaming workloads.
Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies, Johny Srouji, highlighted the chip’s suitability for heavily threaded and bandwidth-intensive applications. The M3 Ultra is built using Apple’s UltraFusion packaging architecture, which connects two M3 Max dies, enabling the system to operate as a single chip, optimizing performance while maintaining power efficiency.
The new chip supports up to 512GB of unified memory, surpassing the memory capabilities of current workstation graphics cards. This feature is expected to benefit professional workflows that require significant graphics memory, such as 3D rendering, visual effects, and AI.
In terms of connectivity, the M3 Ultra introduces Thunderbolt 5 to the Mac Studio, offering data transfer speeds of up to 120 Gb/s, more than double that of Thunderbolt 4. Each Thunderbolt 5 port on Mac Studio has its own controller on the chip, ensuring dedicated bandwidth.
The M3 Ultra chip also integrates several of Apple’s cutting-edge technologies, including a media engine with the capacity for extensive video processing and the ability to play back multiple streams of 8K ProRes video. The display engine supports up to eight Pro Display XDRs, and the Secure Enclave provides advanced security measures.
Apple emphasizes the environmental benefits of the M3 Ultra’s power efficiency, which aligns with the company’s goal to be carbon neutral across its entire carbon footprint by 2030.
This announcement is based on a press release statement from Apple Inc. detailing the capabilities and features of the new M3 Ultra chip.
In other recent news, Foxconn has reported a 25% increase in revenue for the first two months of 2025, reaching NT$1.1 trillion ($33.5 billion). This growth is attributed to rising demand for AI computing, particularly benefiting from its role as a supplier to Nvidia and Apple. Analysts anticipate a 22% revenue increase for Foxconn in the first quarter. Meanwhile, Nvidia announced $11 billion in quarterly revenue from its Blackwell chip, marking the fastest product ramp in its history.
Apple has been active with several developments, including a legal challenge against the UK government over encryption access to its cloud storage. The tech giant has filed a complaint with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal to contest a "technical capability notice" issued under the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act. Additionally, Apple has launched its latest iPad Air models equipped with the M3 chip, starting at $599. The new iPad Air promises enhanced performance with advanced AI capabilities and is available in multiple sizes and finishes.
Pre-orders for the updated iPad Air and a newly enhanced standard iPad have begun, with availability set for March 12. The standard iPad now features the A16 chip, offering a significant performance boost. These developments come as Tesla experiences a 3.1% rise in premarket trading, following a 21% increase in new car registrations in the UK for February, despite declining sales in Europe and China.
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