Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the stage in San Francisco on Wednesday to announce what he called "the birth of the next generation of Windows agentic platforms," alongside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and a new wave of AI-centric hardware.
The Surface Laptop Ultra
Microsoft showed off the Surface Laptop Ultra, its answer to Apple's MacBook Pro and what the company calls the most powerful Windows laptop to date. The device was first announced in May, and Microsoft confirmed on Wednesday that it is available for preorder starting at $2,599, with shipping to begin on October 16.
The laptop runs on Nvidia's RTX Spark chip, allowing it to run demanding AI and agentic workloads directly on the device — an approach hardware makers, including Apple, have increasingly positioned as central to the future of personal computing. Huang was bullish, declaring, "We have reinvented the computer as we know it."
'Hybrid Intelligence'
Microsoft also announced "Hybrid Intelligence," the ability of its latest version of Windows and new devices to use a mix of on-device AI models and cloud-based ones depending on the task. Less-demanding or sensitive tasks stay on the user's device, while heavier work goes to the cloud only when needed — a design meant to tame ballooning AI costs for enterprise customers.
With a user's permission, Hybrid Intelligence can access files across a computer and take local actions, from moving or renaming items to operating apps directly. Microsoft says services like Autopilot could be instructed to gather documents, images, or other content from anywhere on a machine and rearrange them, or make changes directly to documents, spreadsheets, and other Office files.
A developer push
The event also brought AI updates to Copilot for developers, including the ability to distinguish between a user's actions and the AI's actions at every step of a project. Microsoft announced that Muse, Meta Platforms' personal AI agent, is coming to Windows, and unveiled the Surface RTZ Spark Dev Box — a $5,999 desktop aimed at developers running open-weight AI models, which unlike proprietary systems such as ChatGPT and Claude can be downloaded and run on any capable device.
Sources:
Barron's: Microsoft and Nvidia Unveil AI-Centric Laptop and 'Hybrid Intelligence'
The Surface Laptop Ultra
Microsoft showed off the Surface Laptop Ultra, its answer to Apple's MacBook Pro and what the company calls the most powerful Windows laptop to date. The device was first announced in May, and Microsoft confirmed on Wednesday that it is available for preorder starting at $2,599, with shipping to begin on October 16.
The laptop runs on Nvidia's RTX Spark chip, allowing it to run demanding AI and agentic workloads directly on the device — an approach hardware makers, including Apple, have increasingly positioned as central to the future of personal computing. Huang was bullish, declaring, "We have reinvented the computer as we know it."
'Hybrid Intelligence'
Microsoft also announced "Hybrid Intelligence," the ability of its latest version of Windows and new devices to use a mix of on-device AI models and cloud-based ones depending on the task. Less-demanding or sensitive tasks stay on the user's device, while heavier work goes to the cloud only when needed — a design meant to tame ballooning AI costs for enterprise customers.
With a user's permission, Hybrid Intelligence can access files across a computer and take local actions, from moving or renaming items to operating apps directly. Microsoft says services like Autopilot could be instructed to gather documents, images, or other content from anywhere on a machine and rearrange them, or make changes directly to documents, spreadsheets, and other Office files.
A developer push
The event also brought AI updates to Copilot for developers, including the ability to distinguish between a user's actions and the AI's actions at every step of a project. Microsoft announced that Muse, Meta Platforms' personal AI agent, is coming to Windows, and unveiled the Surface RTZ Spark Dev Box — a $5,999 desktop aimed at developers running open-weight AI models, which unlike proprietary systems such as ChatGPT and Claude can be downloaded and run on any capable device.
Sources:
Barron's: Microsoft and Nvidia Unveil AI-Centric Laptop and 'Hybrid Intelligence'
