Microsoft and Nvidia to Unveil Surface Laptop Ultra for On-Device AI Agents at San Francisco Event

Microsoft will use a Wednesday event in San Francisco to introduce a new laptop built around Nvidia chips, part of a joint push to make Windows a home for AI agents that can carry out tasks such as writing code on the machine itself rather than in the cloud, according to Reuters.

The computer, to be called the Surface Laptop Ultra, will be presented by Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella and Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang, Reuters reported. Microsoft has billed the gathering as an update on its Windows operating system and its Surface hardware line.

A bet on moving AI off the cloud

For Microsoft, the strategy is to shift some computing work away from its Azure data centers and onto powerful Windows machines in offices and homes, a market where the company remains entrenched and where customers, rather than Microsoft, pay for the hardware, according to Reuters. Analysts told Reuters that Apple is pursuing a similar opening with its Mac computers.

Nvidia has its own prize in view. According to Reuters, success in Windows PCs would give the chipmaker a route into one of the last large computing markets still led by its longtime rivals Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.

The laptop is the product of years of collaboration between the two companies, built around Nvidia’s RTX Spark chips, which were announced in June, Reuters reported. The aim is to let desktops and laptops handle demanding jobs directly, from generating computer code to working through complex business projects.

Safety and price are the open questions

Analysts told Reuters that one central challenge will be showing that AI agents — software systems designed to work through multi-step problems on their own — can be kept safely contained on a personal computer. Reuters noted that Nvidia is working to avoid a repeat of a hack at the AI platform Hugging Face, while Apple is tightening how agents get access to a Mac’s hard drive.

Price may be the harder test. A shortage-driven run-up in memory-chip costs has pushed PC prices higher, and Reuters reported that Nvidia recently raised the price of its DGX Spark AI desktop by about 75%, to $6,950, because of the cost of its 128 gigabytes of memory. That is a sharp change from two years ago, when Microsoft was pitching on-device AI laptops priced mostly below $2,000.

Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, told Reuters that memory prices are squeezing both Microsoft’s and Apple’s efforts, and that local AI may for now be practical mainly for buyers with larger budgets. How Microsoft prices the Surface Laptop Ultra will signal how broad an audience the companies expect for agent-capable PCs.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters.