MediaTek has introduced the Dimensity 9600 Pro, a new flagship smartphone processor built on a 2nm manufacturing process. That sounds like the sort of detail destined for a spec sheet nobody reads, but the potential benefits are much easier to understand: faster phones, less battery drain, stronger on-device AI, better gaming, and more capable cameras.
The company is pairing it with a second processor, the Dimensity 9600M, aimed at bringing many of the same high-end features to a wider range of smartphones. The first phones using either chip are expected to arrive this quarter.
More Speed Without Making The Battery Pay For It
Most people do not buy a phone based on the size of its processor transistors. What matters is what happens when they open apps, bounce between social media and maps, edit a photo, play a game, or reach the end of a long day away from a charger. That is where MediaTek’s 2nm design gets interesting.
The Dimensity 9600 Pro uses an eight-core CPU made up of two C2-Ultra cores running at up to 4.55GHz and six C2-Pro cores split across two clock speeds. MediaTek says the processor delivers up to 17% better single-core performance and 15% better multi-core performance compared with the previous generation.
The bigger consumer story may be efficiency. MediaTek claims a 61% reduction in multi-core power consumption. If phone makers can translate that into retail devices, users could see better sustained performance without burning through the battery quite as quickly.
Those figures come from MediaTek’s own demo-device testing, so real-world results will vary by phone. Cooling systems, software tuning, battery size, and other hardware choices still matter.
What to Expect in Phones with a 9600 Pro
- Better battery efficiency under heavy use
- Faster everyday performance and multitasking
- More powerful on-device AI
- Gaming up to 185fps
- Faster ray tracing and graphics
- Advanced AI-assisted photography
- 4K/240fps slow-motion video
- Support for LPDDR6 and UFS 5.0
- Better performance for demanding apps and games
AI That Can Do More Without Calling The Cloud
The Dimensity 9600 Pro puts plenty of muscle behind AI, using a dual-NPU architecture and MediaTek’s Agentic AI Engine.
MediaTek says its NPU 1090 offers 51% higher LLM prefill performance and 55% more token generation per watt, with support for on-device AI models containing up to 30 billion parameters. A second-generation Super Efficient NPU is claimed to cut power use for always-on AI by 40%.
For phone owners, that could mean more AI tasks taking place directly on the device, including analyzing locally stored information, offering proactive assistance, and generating personalized responses. The exact experience will depend on what smartphone brands build around MediaTek’s hardware.
Gaming Gets Faster, Cameras Get Smarter
Mobile gamers get a new G2-Ultra NX GPU, which MediaTek says offers up to 27% higher peak graphics performance, 24% lower power consumption at peak performance, and 18% faster ray tracing. Supported games can reach frame rates of up to 185fps.
The camera side gets the Imagiq 1290 ISP paired with MediaTek’s AI Imaging Fusion Architecture. Supported features include 60fps AI-assisted motion capture, 4K video at 240fps for ultra-slow motion, 4K60 AI True Color Tone, 4K120 cinematic log recording, and 17EV imaging.
In plain English, smartphone manufacturers will have more processing headroom for demanding video modes, computational photography, and tracking moving subjects.
Dimensity 9600M Brings The Same Ideas To More Phones
MediaTek shared fewer technical details about the Dimensity 9600M, but it keeps the Agentic AI Engine, Dimensity Scheduling Engine, AI-assisted imaging features, and gaming support up to 185fps through HyperEngine.
The first Dimensity 9600 Pro and Dimensity 9600M phones are expected to launch this quarter. MediaTek has not yet named the manufacturers or devices that will use them. More details about the Dimensity lineup are available through MediaTek’s official smartphone chipset site.
