We’ll definitely hear about the NVIDIA RTX Spark-powered Surface Laptop Ultra, but what else?
It’s been two years since Microsoft launched Copilot+ AI PCs, its first major attempt at fostering AI-ready hardware, and the results have been mixed, to say the least. This month, the company is again gearing up to espouse the virtues of agentic AI, the latest trendy topic in the tech world, in San Francisco on October 7. Microsoft describes the event as “a conversation on how local AI will shape the next chapter of the PC,” and it will include notable guests like CEO Satya Nadella, head of Windows and Devices Pavan Davuluri and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.
Given the PC world’s lack of enthusiasm for the Copilot+ initiative, the subsequent removal of intrusive Copilot+ features in Windows 11 and the tepid response to invasive features like Recall, Microsoft is going into this event on the defensive. Can it really whip up enthusiasm for the latest buzzy AI trend? Here’s what we expect to see in San Francisco next week.
More details on the Surface Laptop Ultra and NVIDIA’s RTX Spark
NVIDIA is once again claiming it will redefine PCs with its RTX Spark, the company’s first major Arm-powered chip built for massive AI models on Windows laptops and desktops. The Surface Laptop Ultra, which was announced in June, is one of the first devices powered by RTX Spark, and from the brief glimpse we got earlier this year, it appears to be a direct competitor to Apple’s powerful MacBook Pro. It sports a 15-inch mini-LED screen with up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness, a massive trackpad and all the ports you want.
But we still don’t know how much the Surface Laptop Ultra will actually cost, and there’s no concrete release date yet. I’d bet the company is saving up those crucial details for next week’s event. I’d also bet it will be so expensive, only true AI diehards will want one. AMD recently launched its flagship AI desktop hardware, the Ryzen AI Halo, at $3,999, and NVIDIA’s existing Linux-powered DGX Spark systems sell for $4,999 (up from $4,000 at launch).
Large AI models demand gobs of RAM to run locally, which is a major reason why these AI-focused systems are so exorbitant. To recap, the NVIDIA RTX Spark will feature 6,144 Blackwell GPU cores, 20 Arm CPU cores and up to 128GB of unified memory. The RTX Spark will also be less power-hungry than existing AI hardware, drawing up to only 80 watts of power.
I’m not expecting to be very surprised by the Surface Laptop Ultra. Aside from being one of the first systems with RTX Spark, it just seems to be another premium laptop. But I’m hoping to discover what inspired this poetic take on the notebook from Microsoft Corporate Vice President Brett Ostrum: “A machine like this should not sit still. It should be pushed. Taken to the edge. Used to make real what others call impossible. It belongs in the hands of world makers.”
A bigger agentic AI push in Windows
Microsoft isn’t really keeping this a secret: The company wants us to know it’s going to have some big agentic AI news next week. That comes on the heels of Meta launching its Muse AI agent, which quickly reached 5 million downloads, but also arrived with a serious 0-day flaw. Much like it did with Recall, Microsoft could easily run into unforeseen privacy issues with a true AI agent, which would potentially be able to see all of your files, your browsing history and act on your behalf.
We’ve already seen Microsoft’s concept of an AI agent platform in the form of Project Solara, which in demos earlier this year was shown to work across a smart display and smart key badge. However, that still seems more sci-fi than reality. The company has also dabbled in some weaker agentic concepts in Windows, including Office Agent to help you build out documents, as well as an agent for dealing with settings in Copilot+ PCs.
The core idea of agentic AI — letting an AI tool work on tasks with minimal input — sounds intriguing, especially to people who’ve already fully changed their workflows around modern AI models. But it’s also not something that will easily translate to people outside of the tech world. I can see why so many programmers got excited about OpenClaw, but only a few people will want to manage an agent with an archaic command line interface.
If anything, I’d imagine Microsoft trying to bring something like Perplexity’s Computer, which can automatically assign tasks to multiple AI models locally and online, directly into Windows. The company recently revamped its Copilot app to make room for automated agentic workflows, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that continues to evolve along with the rest of its agentic ambitions. And I expect we’ll learn more next week.
