This application relates to an image recognition technology in the field of computer vision of artificial intelligence, and provides an image classification method and apparatus. The method includes: obtaining an input feature map of a to-be-processed image; performing feature extraction processing on the input feature map based on a feature extraction kernel of a neural network, to obtain an output feature map, where each of a plurality of output sub-feature maps is determined based on the corresponding input sub-feature map and the feature extraction kernel, at least one of the output sub-feature maps is determined based on a target matrix obtained after an absolute value is taken, and a difference between the target matrix and the input sub-feature map corresponding to the target matrix is the feature extraction kernel; and classifying the to-be-processed image based on the output feature map, to obtain a classification result of the to-be-processed image.