You can see the rectangular 3D-printed RTX Spark Dev Box underneath the monitor, behind the keyboard. It’s flanked by two Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra devices.
Corinne Reichert/CNET
Are they really rumors if Microsoft has already debuted the Surface Laptop Ultra? Alas, we’re going to recap everything we know — and don’t know — about the company’s upcoming AI workhorse of a computer.
At Computex this spring, Microsoft first introduced us to the Surface Laptop Ultra, touting its Nvidia RTX Spark chip and new system-on-a-chip designed for Windows. What does all that mean? As CNET’s laptop expert Lori Grunin put it, the hardware should “light a fire for Windows on Arm.”
This is not your everyday work laptop. It’s likely to be a high-end, premium offering meant for the devoted developer, engineer or creator who needs a machine with the necessary firepower for their complex or compute-intensive tasks. In other words, it’s going to be great for running AI.
This could be Microsoft’s competitor to Apple’s MacBook Pro line. Nvidia’s RTX Spark chip and platform are poised to give the Surface Laptop Ultra the boost it needs to compete in this premium market.
The biggest unknowns right now are the price and release date, which we’re hoping to learn today. And even more hopefully, it won’t cost an extraordinary chunk of change. But for a premium laptop, in this era of price hikes and RAMaggedon, it’s anyone’s guess.