MediaTek, a leading semiconductor company based in Taiwan, has introduced the Dimensity 9600 Pro, a new processor aimed at the highest-end Android smartphones. This chip is designed to offer improved performance, enhanced artificial intelligence features, and significantly reduced power usage. The Dimensity 9600 Pro uses TSMC's N2P manufacturing process, which allows for transistors as small as 2 nanometers—roughly 100,000 times smaller than a human hair. This miniaturization enables the integration of about 33 billion transistors into a compact space, boosting efficiency and performance. The new processor features eight performance-focused cores, moving away from the inclusion of smaller, power-saving cores used in previous models. It includes two C2-Ultra cores running at 4.55 GHz, three C2-Pro cores at 4.35 GHz, and three additional cores at 3.1 GHz. According to MediaTek, the Dimensity 9600 Pro offers up to 17% better single-core performance and 15% better multi-core performance compared to the previous generation. Most notably, it uses 61% less power during multi-core tasks. In early testing, a prototype scored 3242 points on the Geekbench 7 single-core test, slightly below the expected score for Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. For gaming and multimedia, the Dimensity 9600 Pro includes the G2-Ultra NX GPU, which offers up to 27% more power and 24% lower energy consumption at peak performance. It also improves ray tracing performance by 18% and can render up to 185 images per second. This performance allows games like Genshin Impact to run smoothly at 60 images per second in 864p resolution, with a 10% reduction in power usage. The chip also includes AI-specific engines that reduce power consumption for always-on functions by 40% and speed up operations for large language models by 51%, enabling the local processing of models with up to 30 billion parameters. The Dimensity 9600 Pro supports advanced photography features through the Imagiq 1290 image processor, capable of recording 4K video at 240 images per second, 4K at 120 i/s in Log mode, and 4K at 60 i/s with AI assistance. It also offers a dynamic range of up to 17 EV, which improves the quality of both bright and dark areas in photos. The Oppo Find X10 Pro Max and Vivo models are expected to be among the first smartphones to use this chip, with availability starting this quarter. However, due to limited 2 nm chip production, the chip may be more expensive and take longer to reach markets like France.