Core AI is Apple's on-device ML runtime in iOS 27 / macOS 27 and the successor to Core ML: PyTorch models are exported with Apple's coreai-torch (LLMs: coreai.llm.export) into .aimodel bundles that run on the GPU or the Neural Engine, e.g. Qwen3-8B 4-bit decodes at 94 tok/s on an M4 Max GPU, MLX 90 under the same protocol (apple-silicon-llm-bench, macOS 27 beta 26A5353q, 2026-06-11).

This model has no row on DeviceMark, the on-device LLM leaderboard.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B — Core AI (gather_qmm kernel, 2.1× faster)

Apple Core AI (.aimodel) conversion of Qwen/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B (text decoder): Qwen3.5's hybrid GatedDeltaNet + gated-attention body with a 256-expert top-8 sparse MoE (+ shared expert). 35B total / ~3B active per token.

Part of the community Core AI model zoo: https://github.com/john-rocky/coreai-model-zoo (full card: zoo/qwen3.6.md).

Use it

New to Core AI? Start with CoreAIKit 0.7.3. Follow its requirements and first-run steps for qwen3-0.6b, then open the same release's ChatDemo. The README records the tested OS/SDK and download size; model and device coverage is stated per example.

⚡ One line — run the kit's task op on this model (import CoreAIOps; no session, no model plumbing, downloads on first use):

let tldr = try await CoreAI.summarize(text, options: .model("qwen3.6-35b-a3b"))

Every op, one shape — Cookbook.

▶️ Run it (source) — the ChatDemo runner (GUI + CLI, one app for every chat model in the catalog):

git clone --branch 0.7.3 --depth 1 https://github.com/john-rocky/coreai-kit
export DEVELOPER_DIR=/Applications/Xcode-27.0.0-RC.app/Contents/Developer
open -a /Applications/Xcode-27.0.0-RC.app coreai-kit/Examples/ChatDemo/ChatDemo.xcodeproj
# → Run, then pick "Qwen3.6-35B-A3B (MoE)" in the model picker

# agents / headless (macOS):
cd coreai-kit/Examples/ChatDemo
swift run -c release chat-cli --model qwen3.6-35b-a3b --prompt "What can you do, offline?"

Use Xcode build 27A266a from the release's .xcode-pin; adjust the app path if your installation is named differently.

💻 Build with it — complete; the glue is kit API, copy-paste runs:

import CoreAIKit

let id = "qwen3.6-35b-a3b"
let chat: ChatSession
if id == "qwen3-0.6b" {
    // Freeze the release starter; other selections retain the live catalog's
    // model-specific dispatch (including paired Gemma bundles).
    guard let model = ModelCatalog.builtin.entry(id: id)?.modelID else {
        throw CoreAIKitError.modelNotAvailableOnPlatform(id: id)
    }
    chat = try await ChatSession(model: model)
} else {
    chat = try await ChatSession(catalog: "qwen3.6-35b-a3b")
}
let reply = try await chat.respond(to: prompt)
// reply: the answer, generated fully on-device

When Apple's FoundationModels built-in model isn't enough, keep your session code and swap the model — one line. CoreAIKit's KitLanguageModel plugs supported chat bundles into the system LanguageModelSession. Tool calling depends on the model's dialect; guided generation also requires a compatible sequential engine. Check the linked support matrix before using either capability.

The take-home is Examples/ChatDemo/Sources/QuickStart.swift — this exact code as one typed function, no UI; the CLI is an argument shell over it, and the GUI drives the same ChatSession across turns for its transcript. Multi-turn? Hold the ChatSession and call respond(to:) per turn — it keeps the conversation history; streamResponse(to:) yields tokens as they decode.

Integration checklist

• SPM: https://github.com/john-rocky/coreai-kit (exact 0.7.3) → product CoreAIKit
• Info.plist: none needed
• Entitlements: none needed (macOS)
• First run downloads the model — ~37,349 MB (Mac) — then it loads from the local cache (Application Support; progress via the downloadProgress callback)
• Measure in Release — Debug is ~3× slower on per-token host work

The gather_qmm kernel — 30.9 → 64.9 tok/s (2.1×)

Apple's GatherMM composite gathers the routed experts then runs a dense matmul that reads all 256 experts' weights every token — over-read-bound at 30.9 tok/s. This bundle uses a custom coreai_torch.TorchMetalKernel that takes the routed indices as a kernel input and reads only the 8 routed experts' weight slabs (8/256), so decode runs at active-param (~3B) bandwidth: 64.9 tok/s, 2.1×.

Quality is clean and unchanged. The kernel reads the sym8 scheme = the same symmetric-linear int8 (per-K-block-32) recipe the standard int8 bundle uses, via a bit-exact gather: 0 introduced flips / 18 vs fp16 (the shipped GatherMM int8 was 14/16 vs the bf16 oracle; this matches it). So this is a pure speed win at the same quality.

Mac-only (35 GB int8 is far past the iPhone limit; this is the 64/128 GB-Mac flagship).

Run

COREAI_CHUNK_THRESHOLD=1 llm-benchmark --model gpu-pipelined/qwen3_6_35b_a3b_decode_sym8_gather -p 128 -g 256 -n 3

The decode graph's input_ids is static [1,1]; prefill runs as S=1 pipelined steps. Convert your own with conversion/export_qwen3_6_moe_metal_decode_pipelined.py.

License

Apache-2.0 (upstream Qwen license). Conversion + gather_qmm kernel: community.

---

More models in this format: Core AI Model Zoo — 75 models, each with the recipe that produced it.

Want a different model on-device? Open a request — free, open weights only; the export and its measured numbers get published publicly.