Apple Announces First Touchscreen MacBook Pro with M5 Max and 128GB Unified Memory
Apple has announced its first touchscreen MacBook Pro featuring a PROLED XDR display, M5 Max and M5 Pro chips, and up to 128GB of unified memory. The new laptops are designed to enable local execution of large language models with hundreds of billions of parameters directly on the device. This release significantly empowers creative professionals and developers by bringing high-performance local AI capabilities and hardware-accelerated neural processing to laptops. By processing massive workloads and sensitive data on-device rather than on third-party cloud servers, it ensures robust privacy and eliminates cloud latency. The M5 Pro and M5 Max chips feature a dedicated neural accelerator in each GPU core to speed up local AI inference and handle graphics-intensive AI tasks. Pre-orders begin on October 30, with official sales starting November 6, and starting prices in mainland China at 22,999 RMB for the 14-inch model and 27,999 RMB for the 16-inch model.
## BACKGROUND
Apple's Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) allows the CPU and GPU to share a single, high-bandwidth memory pool, which is critical for loading and running large machine learning models locally. Tools like LM Studio enable users to run language models locally using acceleration frameworks, while TouchDesigner provides a node-based visual programming environment for interactive multimedia workflows.