Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is set to unveil a new laptop powered by Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) chips on Wednesday as the companies expand efforts to run artificial intelligence workloads directly on personal computers.
Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella and Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang are expected to introduce the Surface Laptop Ultra at a Microsoft-hosted event in San Francisco focused on Windows and the company’s Surface hardware.
The laptop will use Nvidia’s RTX Spark chips, announced in June, and is intended to support AI agents capable of handling tasks such as writing computer code and working on complex business projects directly on the device rather than relying entirely on cloud infrastructure.
For Microsoft, local AI processing could allow some workloads currently handled through its Azure cloud infrastructure to run on Windows computers. Nvidia’s involvement also expands its presence in the Windows PC processor market, where Intel and Advanced Micro Devices have established positions.
Pricing and Security in Focus
One issue for Microsoft and Nvidia will be demonstrating how AI agents capable of performing extended, autonomous tasks can operate securely on personal computers. Nvidia has been working on security measures following the hacking of AI platform Hugging Face, while Apple has been developing controls governing AI agents’ access to Mac storage.
Analysts are also focused on pricing as higher memory costs affect desktop and laptop hardware.
Microsoft’s earlier push to run AI workloads locally centred largely on laptops priced below $2,000. More recently, Nvidia increased the price of its DGX Spark AI desktop system by about 75% to $6,950 amid higher costs associated with its 128 gigabytes of memory.
Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said higher memory prices are affecting both Microsoft’s and Apple’s efforts to expand local AI computing.
Two years ago, “the software wasn’t ready, but the hardware was. Now the software is ready and the hardware is too expensive to actually run it locally,” Sag said. “So it’s becoming this thing where only the people who have the budget can really afford to run AI locally.”
Microsoft stock price
Nvidia stock price
