Microsoft used an event in San Francisco during the city's Tech Week on Wednesday to reveal specs and pricing for its new Surface Laptop Ultra, a PC built around Nvidia's RTX Spark chip. The machine will be sold in two base configurations, one starting at $2,600 and a more powerful version starting at $3,700. Buyers can add more memory and storage, pushing the price as high as $5,900, and Microsoft says the top-end device is already out of stock. Nvidia had announced agreements with Microsoft and other PC makers in June to build AI- and agent-ready Windows PCs on the RTX Spark chip, but few details were available then.
Microsoft also introduced a workstation using the same chip, the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, priced from $6,000. It ships with Microsoft development tools including VS Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, WSL and PowerShell 7. The company says both the laptop and the workstation are intended to run AI models locally on the device at no cost, with the CPU, GPU, unified memory and hardware changes such as improved cooling needed to handle those workloads.
Both devices run a revamped version of Windows 11 that adds a feature called Execution Containers, which Microsoft says makes it easier to sandbox AI agents. CEO Satya Nadella said at the event that the feature will be available to all Windows 11 users. Nadella said the company had learned over the past three to four years that a model by itself accomplishes little, and that orchestration, memory outside the model and a layer combining multiple models with context, memory and action space are required. He added that Microsoft is enabling this for its own apps and for anyone's agent, describing that as the focus of the Windows platform going forward.
The devices are aimed squarely at developers. Microsoft is offering as much as $1,000 off for customers who trade in a MacBook Pro, a nod to how popular Macs have become among developers and AI agent enthusiasts, particularly in Silicon Valley. The company also says the Surface PCs, with their powerful graphics processing, can handle content creation, video processing and gaming. The US pricing puts the laptop and workstation in premium territory for consumers and independent developers, while the trade-in offer targets a rival platform.
Microsoft was not the only PC maker to detail its Nvidia RTX Spark AI Windows machines on Wednesday. Dell announced specifications for its previously announced Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition. That PC is available for pre-order now at Best Buy for $3,800, with delivery later in October.
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