Like Intel, Apple has chosen to add some instructions to the processor which accelerate certain operations (in this case matrix operations). Unlike Intel, Apple

Like Intel, Apple has chosen to add some instructions to the processor which accelerate certain operations (in this case matrix operations). Unlike Intel, Apple has not yet chosen to actually document the M1 architecture. This is where a vertically integrated company like Apple (or IBM back in the day) can leverage "inside knowledge" about their chips to achieve performance that is not readily comparable (or reproducible) on a different instruction set architecture (ISA). Historically (see IBM vs Memorex) obscuring your interfaces has been a losing proposition in the long term, even while delivering favorable margins in the short term. Unlike Intel which needs to get third parties to write software for their chips, Apple writes their own software and so it means they can hold on to their advantage while third parties (like the author of the post) reverse engineer what is going on. It will be "historically significant" if Intel adds a feature to their chips in order to stay competitive with this development. The last time they did that was when AMD introduced Opteron. All in all, its basically just a puzzle that people who are interested in how things work get to work on in their spare time.