- Microsoft and Nvidia will unveil the Surface Laptop Ultra at a San Francisco event on Wednesday, a premium Windows laptop built on Nvidia’s RTX Spark chip to run AI agents on-device rather than in the cloud.
- The catch remains that memory shortage could send top configurations toward $7,000 to $8,000, limiting the machine to well-funded buyers.
- Both companies also have to convince users that AI agents can operate without escaping their PCs.
Microsoft will launch its Surface Laptop Ultra line of laptops at a San Francisco event on Wednesday, a new line of premium Windows PCs using Nvidia’s RTX Spark chip and built to support AI agents directly on the device instead of operating them on the cloud.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Nvidia chief Jensen Huang are set to take the stage together to unveil the machine, Reuters reported. The laptop is said to be the product of years of collaboration between the two companies.
Pushing AI work off Azure and onto local devices
Today a lot of Microsoft’s AI runs within its Azure data centers, an expensive proposition when viewed at scale. By moving tasks such as code writing and complex business work onto Windows laptops that customers purchase, Microsoft shifts part of that compute bill to its users, according to Reuters.
The company still holds a commanding share of the PC market, which makes it a natural area for the experiment. The partnership also offers a way into a Windows PC market that has been dominated by Intel and AMD for Nvidia.
The RTX Spark chip was revealed in June, and is an Arm-based system-on-chip developed along with MediaTek that brings together the CPU, graphics and unified memory all into one package.
What Microsoft has confirmed, and what leaked
Microsoft’s product page highlights the hardware behind the new machine. It has a 15-inch mini-LED PixelSense Ultra touchscreen with a 3:2 aspect ratio and peak HDR brightness of 2,000 nits, while the chassis is less than 18mm thick and weighs less than 4.5 pounds.
Ports include USB-C, USB-A, HDMI and a full-size SD card reader. The touchpad is about 30% larger than the previous model, and the SSD can be replaced by the user. The thermal system also has up to 2.5 times the heat capacity of the 15-inch Surface Laptop 7th Edition. Microsoft also stated that the chip can deliver up to one petaflop of AI compute and support up to 128GB of unified memory.
Leaks suggest the laptop will come in two configurations. The base version is expected to pair an 18-core CPU with 5,120 CUDA cores and 24GB of LPDDR5X memory, while the higher-end model would step up to a 20-core CPU and 6,144 CUDA cores. The two chips will also differ in memory capacity, with the smaller version reportedly capped at 32GB and the larger one supporting up to 128GB.
The launch’s price problem
Pricing is expected to start above $2,000 for the new Surface Ultra device, with the highest-end configurations potentially reaching $7,000 to $8,000 when equipped with 128GB of memory. Microsoft has not yet disclosed official prices for the devices. Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, told Reuters that rising memory costs are causing a massive headache for both Microsoft and Apple. He explained that the software is ready, but the hardware needed to run AI locally remains too expensive. This means local AI is still largely limited to people who can afford high-end hardware.
A memory-chip shortage has driven up component costs across the industry, and AI machines have been hit the hardest, compared to two years ago, when Microsoft first began pushing the idea of running AI workloads directly on PCs. Laptops with those capabilities generally cost less than $2,000 at the time, but the prices for these have since risen sharply.
Keeping agents contained, amid other issues
Microsoft and Nvidia also need to convince buyers that AI agents, which can work autonomously for extended periods, can operate safely without escaping the confines of the PC.
The hardware powering the new Surface laptops is not Microsoft’s alone. At IFA last month, Nvidia said the first RTX Spark laptops and desktops would land in October, with Dell, HP, Asus, MSI, Lenovo, and Acer all backing the platform. Windows and Devices chief Pavan Davuluri is expected to join Nadella and Huang at the event, which is set to involve more extensive updates on Windows and the Surface line.
Ahead of the event, Microsoft shares were down 0.47% at $526.83, while Nvidia fell 1.05% to $236.72.
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Opeyemi Olanrewaju
Opeyemi specializes in creating and refining high-quality content focused on cryptocurrency, global financial markets and the economy. He graduated from the University of Ibadan with an MBBS degree. He has worked as Editor-in-Chief for his College’s editorial publication and previously at CFA. For over six years, he has helped safeguard uniqueness as news editor at Cryptopolitan.
