Microsoft, Nvidia CEOs to unveil new AI laptop at San Francisco event
MSFT•Microsoft and Nvidia will unveil the Surface Laptop Ultra on Wednesday, a laptop expected to use Nvidia's RTX Spark chips for running AI tasks locally. Analysts say pricing is a key question after Nvidia raised its DGX Spark desktop price about 75% to $6,950 amid higher memory costs.
1. New laptop launch
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will introduce the Surface Laptop Ultra at a Microsoft-hosted event in San Francisco. The laptop is expected to use Nvidia's RTX Spark chips, announced in June, to run AI tasks such as writing code on the device rather than in the cloud.
2. Pricing and costs
Analysts said the price of the new offerings will be a major question as a memory-chip crunch has raised desktop and laptop costs. Nvidia recently increased the price of its DGX Spark AI desktop by about 75% to $6,950, citing surging costs for its 128 gigabytes of memory.
3. Local AI challenges
Microsoft is betting that some work now handled in Azure data centers can shift to Windows machines used by businesses and households. Analysts also point to the challenge of safely containing AI agents on personal computers. Anshel Sag of Moor Insights & Strategy said higher memory prices are affecting both Apple and Microsoft's efforts.
