

If you are switching from a Mac with an Intel processor to a Mac with Apple M Series Chip or the other way around, please refer to KB 125344 for more details. Therefore, a virtual machine created on an Intel-based Mac cannot be used on a Mac with M Series Chip, and vise-versa. Software applications are heavily dependent on a computer's CPU architecture: an application that is compiled (created) for one architecture, cannot be easily run on another architecture. Virtual machines created on Intel-based Mac computers have x86_64 CPU architecture that is fundamentally different from the Arm architecture. It is built on Arm architecture and includes a system on a chip (SoC) that combines numerous powerful technologies into a single silicon, featuring a unified memory architecture for dramatically improved performance and efficiency.

Apple M Series chip is a successor of iPad’s A14Z chip and the first designed specifically for the Mac.
