Apple's chips are based on the ARM architecture, which is inherently more power-efficient than the x86 architecture used by AMD and Intel for their laptops. Apple also designs these chips in-house.

Apple is using a combination of high-performance and high-efficiency cores (Big.LITTLE architecture), allowing the chip to balance performance and power usage based on the task at hand. They also include dedicated hardware for specific tasks (like video encoding/decoding), which can be more efficient than performing these tasks on general-purpose cores.

AMD and Intel design chips for a wide range of devices and systems, requiring a more generic approach. This limits their ability to optimise for specific hardware and software combinations. Apple designs chips solely for its own products, allowing for tighter integration between chip, hardware, and software.