Microsoft presented two new PCs powered by Nvidia’s RTX Spark chip and a revised build of Windows 11 during a San Francisco event. The devices target developers and are intended to run AI models locally using on-device CPU, GPU and unified memory, Microsoft said.
Hardware and pricing
The Surface Laptop Ultra is offered in two base configurations that start at $2,600 and $3,700, with upgrade options for additional memory and storage raising the top price to $5,900. Microsoft said the highest-end Laptop Ultra is already out of stock.
Microsoft also introduced the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a workstation configured around the RTX Spark chip and aimed at development workflows. The company listed the Dev Box starting at $6,000 and shipping with developer tools including VS Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, WSL and PowerShell 7.
Microsoft described hardware changes such as enhanced cooling and other modifications to support running models on-device “for free,” and said the combination of CPU, GPU and unified memory is intended to enable local inference and agent workloads.
Software, ecosystem and availability
Windows 11 will include a new feature called “Execution Containers” to help sandbox AI agents, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the capability will be available to all Windows 11 users. Nadella argued that models need orchestration, external memory and a harnessed layer to combine multiple models, context and action space, and said Microsoft is enabling that on the Windows platform.
The company positioned the new Surfaces primarily at developers and is offering up to $1,000 off for trade-ins of MacBook Pro systems. Microsoft also said the machines are capable of content creation, video processing and gaming.
Separately, Dell released specifications for its Nvidia-RTX Spark Windows PCs on the same day. The Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition is available for preorder at Best Buy with a price of $3,800 and expected delivery in late October, the company announced. Nvidia had previously said in June that it secured agreements with Microsoft and other PC makers to build RTX Spark-based, agent-ready Windows PCs.
Original source: TechCrunch AI