Microsoft opens preorders for Nvidia RTX Spark-powered Surface Laptop Ultra ($2,599, ships Oct 16), pushing on-device AI on Windows
What happened
At a Windows and Surface event in San Francisco on October 7, Microsoft opened preorders for the Surface Laptop Ultra, a $2,599 laptop (configurations running past $5,000) built around Nvidia's RTX Spark Arm-based chip, with shipments starting October 16. Microsoft said the machine can run AI models with more than 120 billion parameters locally, with up to 128GB of unified memory. Alongside the hardware, Microsoft announced it is bringing local versions of AI models to Windows — including DeepSeek V4 Flash, its own MAI Code 1.1 Flash, and Nvidia's upcoming Nemotron — plus 'Hybrid Intelligence' features that let Copilot act on files directly on the PC. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shared the stage with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft shares rose 0.1% on October 7, their fourth straight session of gains, while Nvidia added ~4% on the week.
Why it matters & what’s next are part of Pro, along with the audio summary.
Start your free 14-day trialWho’s affected
- MSFT — direct: new premium hardware line and Copilot ecosystem expansion support the on-device AI monetization thesis. NVDA — direct: RTX Spark design win in a flagship Microsoft laptop extends Nvidia's AI footprint from data centers into PCs, a new volume market. AAPL — competitive read-through: Microsoft explicitly positioning Surface Ultra against Macs on local-AI capability. DELL/HPQ/LNVGY — AI-PC market-share implications.