Xiaomi’s new chip matches Apple on speed, and tech world notices - Northeast Times

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By
Maya Brooks

Culture & Trends Writer

Published
August 25, 2026
4 min read

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Photo: Wide Awake! / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Xiaomi, the Chinese tech giant whose phones compete directly with iPhones, just dropped a processor that has the tech world talking. The company’s new Xring O3 chip matches Apple’s cores in single-threaded performance and is significantly faster in multithreaded execution, a combination that puts Xiaomi squarely in the conversation about who makes the best mobile silicon on the planet.

For anyone who follows phones or computing even casually, this is a big deal. Apple has dominated mobile chip performance for years. Now the third largest smartphone manufacturer by shipment volume has built something that goes toe to toe with Cupertino’s best, and in some measures surpasses it.

The benchmark numbers tell the story

Benchmark scores posted by commenters on Hacker News lay out the comparison in stark terms. On Geekbench single-core, the Xring O3 scores 3,945. Apple’s M5 iPad chip scores 3,556, while the higher-end M5 Max hits 4,300. The Xiaomi chip sits right between them.

In multi-core, the Xring O3 posts a Geekbench score of 15,221, nearly identical to the M5 iPad’s 15,285 but well below the M5 Max’s 29,200. Where the Xring O3 really flexes is on AnTuTu, a broader performance benchmark. The Xiaomi chip scored 5.5 million compared to the M5 iPad’s 3.5 million.

Tech analyst Daniel Lemire, whose post on the chip went viral, noted that the Xring O3 packs 44 MB of cache, more than most laptop CPUs. Six of its execution ports support 128-bit SIMD, a feature tied to the broader industry trend toward massively parallel cores with extensive SIMD capabilities.

Same ARM core, different ambitions

One Hacker News commenter using the handle ksec pointed out that the Xring O3 is built on the ARM C1-Ultra, the same core architecture used in MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500. That chip scored more than 4,000 points in Geekbench 6 lab testing, but actual results inside a phone with standard smartphone cooling and wattage constraints dropped closer to 3,300.

That gap between lab scores and real-world phone performance is a recurring theme in the discussion. Multiple commenters flagged power consumption as the missing piece of the puzzle. One user, strictnein, put it bluntly: server CPUs can also beat Apple chips, but putting them in a sealed phone “would result in a fireball and almost no battery life.” Another commenter noted the GPU performance approaches Apple’s M5 results at roughly 20 watts, but Android phones typically throttle hard past four watts.

Still, the fact that Xiaomi can now produce a chip on par with MediaTek’s best is significant on its own. Xiaomi is the third largest smartphone maker by shipment volume and is still growing. For MediaTek and Qualcomm, which supply processors to much of the Android world, a major customer building competitive in-house silicon is not welcome news.

Xiaomi unveiled more than just a phone chip

The Xring O3 was not the only announcement. Xiaomi also launched the Xring O100, a 6nm AI accelerator that vertically stacks its NPU compute wafer, and the Xring D100, a smart-driving chip. The company showed off an AI Cube prototype as well. Xiaomi also makes cars, a fact that underscores how far the company has expanded beyond smartphones.

The breadth of the chip lineup signals that Xiaomi is not treating silicon as a side project. It is building a portfolio that spans phones, artificial intelligence and autonomous driving, all areas where custom chips offer a competitive edge.

Apple’s response is a matter of when, not if

The conversation online carries a clear caveat: Apple refreshes its processors like clockwork, and a new chip is expected soon. As one commenter put it, Apple has announced new processors in the same month for over a decade. Whatever lead the Xring O3 holds in multithreaded performance could evaporate quickly.

Some observers also pushed back on the framing. A user named trvz noted that “matches” could just as easily be written as “this year’s product falls short of the competitor’s last year’s one.” The multithreaded advantage, trvz added, comes partly from the Xring O3 using 10 cores compared to Apple’s six.

Those are fair points. But the trajectory matters. A few years ago, no Chinese chipmaker was in the same conversation as Apple on mobile performance. Now Xiaomi’s Xring O3 is trading punches with the M5 lineup on major benchmarks.

What the chip race means beyond Silicon Valley

For consumers, more competition in mobile processors generally means better phones at lower prices. Xiaomi’s devices already sell at a fraction of iPhone prices in many markets, and custom silicon could widen that value gap.

The geopolitical dimension is hard to ignore. China is reportedly moving toward producing its own 5nm chips at scale, a development that could reshape the global semiconductor supply chain. Xiaomi’s chip progress is one piece of that larger picture.

None of this means Apple is in trouble tomorrow. The company’s integration of hardware, software and services remains unmatched. But the days when Apple’s chip team operated without a serious challenger in mobile may be drawing to a close. The next round of processor announcements from both companies will tell us whether this is a one-time spike or a genuine shift in the balance of power.

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About the author
Maya Brooks

Culture & Trends Writer
I cover what the internet is actually talking about: the new release, the viral moment, the creator beef, the product launch. My job is to explain it fast and clearly, without the breathless hype. I read the timeline…

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