As early as June, NVIDIA announced that it had reached agreements with Microsoft and several other PC manufacturers to develop AI and agent ready-to-use computers for Windows based on its RTX Spark chips, but at that time, there was not much detail about these machines.
On Wednesday, at the Tech Week event held in San Francisco, Microsoft announced the specifications and prices of the new Surface Laptop Ultra. This computer comes in two basic models; one starts at $2,600, while the version with a more powerful chip starts at $3,700. With additional memory and storage options, the price can reach up to $5,900. Microsoft stated that the highest-specification version has already sold out.
Microsoft also released a workstation powered by its RTX Spark chip: Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, with a starting price of $6,000, and is equipped with a range of Microsoft-developed tools including VS Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, WSL, and PowerShell.
This PC and the workstation are both designed to run the AI model locally for free. Microsoft claims that they achieve this through CPU, GPU, unified memory, and other hardware modifications – such as improved cooling systems.
In addition, they are running a modified version of Windows, which includes a feature called “Execution Containers”. Microsoft stated that this makes it easier to isolate AI from agent. Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, said at the event that this feature will be available to all Windows users.
Nadella explained, "Over the past 3 to 4 years, we've realized that a single model alone is not enough to solve any problems. What's really needed is orchestration, as well as memory beyond what a model can provide. You need a controlled layer that can handle multiple models, contexts, memories, and action spaces simultaneously."
He added that Microsoft is making this capability "not only applicable to our applications, but also to anyone's agent applications. This is the future development direction of the Windows platform."
These devices are clearly aimed primarily at developers, to the extent that Microsoft offers a discount of up to $1,000 to users who have replaced MacBook Pro with this alternative. Since Mac has become quite popular among developers and enthusiasts of AI and agent, especially in Silicon Valley, Microsoft's move is intended to attract this type of user.
However, Microsoft stated that these Surface PC devices, with their such powerful graphics processing capabilities, are also well-suited for content creation, video editing, and gaming.
It wasn't just Microsoft that announced new Nvidia RTX Spark AI Windows PC specifications on Wednesday. Dell also revealed the details of the previously announced Dell XPS and Creator Edition computers. This product is now available for pre-order and will be shipped by Best Buy later in October, with a price of $3,800.
