At a San Francisco Tech Week event, Microsoft officially launched its new AI computer powered by NVIDIA's RTX Spark chip, marking a major on-device AI deployment since its partnership with NVIDIA was formed in June. The newly released Surface Laptop Ultra comes in two base configurations, priced starting at $2,600 and $3,700 respectively, with the top configuration reaching $5,900 (the top-tier model is already sold out).
Also released alongside is the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box workstation built specifically for developers, starting at $6,000 and preloaded with core development tools including VS Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, WSL and PowerShell7.
On the hardware side, the devices integrate CPU, GPU and unified memory, combined with thermal optimization, aiming to run AI models locally, for free, and efficiently; on the software side, the companion upgraded Windows11 introduces an "Execution Container" feature that greatly lowers the sandboxing barrier for AI Agents, and this feature will be made available to all Windows11 users. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pointed out that relying on models alone can no longer solve complex problems, and that building a coordination layer integrating multiple models, context and memory is the future direction of evolution for the Windows platform.
To attract Silicon Valley AI developers, Microsoft is also offering MacBook Pro users a trade-in subsidy of up to $1,000. Meanwhile, Dell and other vendors followed up by announcing the XPS16Creator Edition specs equipped with the RTX Spark chip (priced at $3,800, expected to ship in late October (10)). This integrated hardware and software upgrade not only consolidates on-device compute and local AI agent deployment capabilities, but will also accelerate the industry's move of AI PCs from concept to high-end productivity scenarios.