MediaTek has announced the Dimensity 9600 Pro, its first mobile chipset built on a 2nm manufacturing process and the first to adopt Arm's next-generation C2 CPU cores and Mali-G2 Ultra NX GPU. The company is positioning the flagship silicon around large performance gains and, in particular, on-device AI compute.

A reshuffled CPU built for efficiency

The new chip changes MediaTek's core layout. Instead of a single prime core, the Dimensity 9600 Pro now uses two Ultra-class cores, dropping one of the smaller efficiency cores in the process. The full configuration is 2x Arm C2-Ultra, 3x C2-Pro and a further 3x C2-Pro, though clock speeds have not been disclosed.

According to MediaTek, single-core performance is up 17% while single-core efficiency improves by 37%. Multi-threaded performance rises 15%, with efficiency gains of 61% — a substantial jump that reflects the move to the smaller 2nm node. The chipset retains 16MB of L3 cache and 10MB of SoC-level cache from the earlier Dimensity 9500.

Graphics, memory and storage upgrades

Graphics duties fall to the Mali-G2 Ultra NX, which MediaTek says supports gaming at more than 185 fps. Peak GPU performance is 27% higher, ray tracing is 18% faster, and power efficiency improves by 24%. The company also highlights neural graphics rendering for higher-quality super resolution.

On the memory side, the chip supports both LPDDR5X and the newer LPDDR6 standard, which MediaTek describes as 33% faster but more costly. Storage moves up to UFS 5.0, ahead of the UFS 4.1 used by the Dimensity 9500. Connectivity carries over Wi-Fi 7, sub-6GHz 5G and GNSS support, with Bluetooth bumped to version 6.2.

AI performance takes center stage

The headline improvements center on the MediaTek NPU 1090. Compared with the NPU 990 in the Dimensity 9500, it doubles INT4 performance and delivers 55% better token generation per watt alongside 51% faster prompt pre-fill. A dedicated hardware compression engine handles the KV cache, a key component in running large language models efficiently on device.

MediaTek is also linking the AI engine more tightly to imaging. The image signal processor can tap directly into the NPU to process photos and video, with support for camera sensors up to 200MP and video capture at up to 8K at 60fps. The video decoding engine adds support for VVC, also known as H.266, alongside existing codecs.

Why it matters

The Dimensity 9600 Pro underlines how quickly the industry is racing toward 2nm silicon and how central on-device AI has become to flagship chip design. Improved token generation, faster prompt handling and KV cache compression all point to smoother performance for generative AI features running locally rather than in the cloud.

MediaTek says the first smartphone using the Dimensity 9600 Pro has already been announced, with more devices to follow. The company has not confirmed whether a standard, non-Pro Dimensity 9600 is planned or when it might arrive.