Why the Neural Engine isn't doing the work

The chat on this site runs the model on your graphics chip. The Neural Engine — the dedicated AI chip in an iPad Pro, iPhone, or Mac — is reserved for installed apps. No web page, in any browser, can reach it today.

Back to the demo Questions and troubleshooting

Why the door is closed

Apple only lets software use the Neural Engine through Core ML, which is an interface for installed apps. Safari deliberately does not pass that through to web pages — partly for security, partly because there is no agreed web standard for it yet.

What browsers do offer is the graphics chip, through a standard called WebGPU. That is genuinely fast and it is what this demo uses. It just isn't the specialised chip sitting next to it.

Graphics chip: open to web pages

Neural Engine: apps only

What a native app would change

An iPad app could show this exact chat page inside itself and answer using the on-device model built into recent versions of iPadOS. That model runs on the Neural Engine: quicker replies, less battery drain, and no multi-hundred-megabyte download, because the model is already on the device.

The trade-offs: it only works for people who install the app, it needs a Mac, Xcode and an Apple developer account to build and submit, and it can't be produced from a web project like this one. The web version, meanwhile, works on any machine with a modern browser and needs nothing installed.

Side by side

What runs the modelIn this page: Graphics chipIn a native app: Neural Engine

SpeedIn this page: Usable, a few words per second on a tabletIn a native app: Noticeably faster, and easier on the battery

DownloadIn this page: 380 MB to 1.1 GB the first timeIn a native app: Nothing — the model ships with the system

PrivacyIn this page: Nothing leaves the deviceIn a native app: Nothing leaves the device

How you get itIn this page: Open a linkIn a native app: Install from the App Store

This may change

A proposed web standard called WebNN would let pages use neural accelerators directly. It is being trialled in some browsers, but Safari does not support it today — so on an iPad, the graphics chip remains the fastest route a web page has.