Like it or hate it, AI is going everywhere, from the AI in phones to the AI in fridges to AI in cars and yes, even the AI in your PC. Unsurprisingly, AI in PCs was one of the first places for it to be, and in the past year or two, it has seemed like manufacturers have looked for more ways to make AI sing in our computers.
If you’re a developer, you can probably build things with the little bit of AI and machine learning your computer comes with, while everyone else looks for the killer app that uses neural hardware positively.
While the jury is still out on exactly “what” those AI workloads will be on a laptop, Microsoft has been working with one of the leading AI processor companies, Nvidia, to build what it believes is a computer chip built specifically for a world where AI is front and centre for everything we do.
Announced at Computex in Taiwan, Nvidia’s RTX Spark is that processor, a new chip designed to be one of the most efficient chips for a computer, and one specifically engineered for AI.
The RTX Spark is a key point for the two, with the chip designed from the ground up to deliver high performance for AI workflows, able to run large language models and set up agentic tasks where the AI works on your behalf.
The result is a piece of hardware that combines AI and graphics, using up to 20 cores, and supporting up to 128GB of memory. And while you may not necessarily find that much memory in a laptop due to the memory storage, Nvidia’s RTX Spark has essentially been built to churn out the performance regardless of whether you’re working or gaming.
A chip like this clearly needs a computer, and that’s something Microsoft has been working on, updating a generation of its Surface Laptop in the Surface Laptop Ultra.
Microsoft’s Surface Ultra will use that Spark chip and come with up to 128GB memory, a configuration that will likely be expensive, but offer the power to handle up to 120 billion parameter AI models.
The hardware will see a 15 inch mini-LED touchscreen offering more brightness than any other Surface model to date, while the system aims to be made for creators, including a bigger trackpad, ports including USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, and even an SD card slot.
One thing we don’t have is price, though we don’t expect the Surface Laptop Ultra will be inexpensive, essentially giving Apple’s M5 MacBook Pro some competition, likely against that top-tier M5 Max edition.
This is very much in the category of “if you have to ask”, and you very well know the rest.
That said, we definitely want to know, especially since it likely sees the Surface line returning to life beyond simply business laptops, which is where the brand has been nestled for a few years now.
