Microsoft has introduced the Surface Laptop Ultra, a laptop built around Nvidia’s RTX Spark platform for on-device AI computing. The $2,599 device is due to begin shipping on October 16.
The laptop combines an Nvidia Blackwell RTX graphics processor with an Nvidia Grace CPU and unified memory. Microsoft and Nvidia are pitching it to developers and creators who need high performance. Some AI workloads will run on the device, while other applications will continue to use Microsoft’s cloud services.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described the approach as “hybrid intelligence.” At an event in San Francisco, he said users would come to expect a mix of local and cloud computing. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said autonomous AI agents would play a central role in software development.
The launch expands Nvidia’s presence in personal computing, a market long dominated by Intel and Qualcomm processors. Microsoft has been developing AI PCs since at least 2024, when its laptops used Qualcomm chips.
The product arrives as companies compete to make AI the main interface for work. Microsoft recently announced deeper integration of Word, Excel and PowerPoint with Copilot. It is also developing its own models to reduce its reliance on OpenAI, although OpenAI and Anthropic models still power much of Copilot.