Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra opens for preorder at $2,599, built to run AI on the laptop itself

Two machines, both on NVIDIA's new Arm-based RTX Spark platform. The first is the Surface Laptop Ultra, which starts at $2,599 and arrives on October 16, The Shortcut reports. The second is the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a mini PC for developers at about $5,999, shipping in November, according to The Verge.

The reveal came at Microsoft's Windows and Surface event in San Francisco. Engadget reports that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Windows and Devices chief Pavan Davuluri and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang all took part.

RTX Spark laptops from Asus, Dell, MSI and HP are also open for preorder, The Shortcut says, and they ship on October 16 too. So this is a platform launch, not just one Surface. Here's the lineup at a glance:

Engadget had already seen the laptop at Microsoft's Build developer conference earlier this year. The details it lists:

• Display: 15-inch mini LED, up to 2,000 nits
• Trackpad: the largest Microsoft has ever made
• Ports: USB-C, USB-A and a full-size SD card reader
• Weight: under 4.5 pounds, which Engadget notes is less than a 16-inch MacBook Pro

Davuluri said the laptop has 2.5 times the thermal capacity of existing Surface notebooks and keeps over 99% of its power when it runs on battery. Engadget also reports a new Magnetic Connect charger that still uses a normal USB-C port, so there's no return of the old proprietary Surface connector.

In real life Think of thermal capacity as how well a laptop sheds heat. A laptop that cools better can run flat out for longer before it slows itself down, which matters when an AI model and a game are running at once.

The Shortcut describes it as long promised to be the most powerful Windows computer yet designed. Its first hands-on played Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at 60fps with ray tracing and explored a city in Unreal Engine 5.

The catch: these machines use an Arm-based chip, not the usual x86 processors, so game support matters. Engadget reports Davuluri said Gears of War: E-Day runs easily alongside serious AI work, and Call of Duty is coming to RTX Spark systems this year.

That's a notable pairing. The pitch is a laptop for developers and creators that also doesn't flinch when you want a break. "We built it for developers and creators, pushing the limits of performance," Davuluri said, per Engadget.

The Dev Box is the bigger, pricier sibling. The Verge says it's more expensive than the DGX Spark mini PC NVIDIA launched last year, though PC prices have been climbing because of shortages of RAM and other components.

Here's what The Verge lists:

• Chassis: flat, 3D-printed anodized aluminum that doubles as a heatsink, with a look that echoes the vents on an Xbox Series X
• Memory: 128GB of unified memory
• Power: a 100-watt thermal envelope and NVIDIA Tensor cores
• Software: a developer-tuned Windows 11 Pro with Visual Studio Code, Git, GitHub CLI, GitHub Copilot, WSL, Python and Node preinstalled

Why it matters: The Verge says the Dev Box is optimized for running local AI, including "models exceeding 120B parameters," for testing models, prototyping AI agents and running AI coding tools on the device. It's also one of Microsoft's Project Zenith devices.

This is the software half of the story. Davuluri said hybrid intelligence exists because "people's appetite for intelligence is unlimited," per Engadget, and by it he means AI that runs both locally and in the cloud.

In practice, The Shortcut explains, Copilot will be able to see your files, take actions and use local models as well as cloud ones. It will tap the cloud only for difficult tasks and run local models to save your tokens. Engadget notes that as token costs keep rising, local models are becoming more important to developers.

Windows 11 will also host several AI agents on the machine, The Shortcut reports, including Hermes Agent, OpenClaw, Perplexity and Meta's Muse. Engadget adds that Muse is coming as a native Windows app. If you want to see what Muse does, we covered it in our Meta Muse story.

Agents that act on your computer need guardrails, and Microsoft spent a good part of the event on them. Engadget reports that Microsoft Execution Containers reached general availability in Windows 11. The idea, Engadget says, is that agents need flexible containment plus a distinct identity and permissions separate from the user's.

For companies, security speaker Divya Venkataramu pointed to Agent 365, which Engadget says lets organizations see which agents are running, isolate them and apply policies. Engadget says partners like OpenAI and Anthropic are already building on these tools.

There's also a lighter-weight change coming this fall. Engadget reports Windows 11 PCs will be able to run thousands of quick actions straight from Taskbar search, such as taking a screenshot or turning on dark mode.

The software side was long. Engadget's reporters said it felt more like a developer conference keynote than a hardware launch, and the live blog tracked a long list of changes:

• Copilot app: a revamp with three sections. "Home" is the starting point, "Code" lets you build and share an app with no programming experience, and "Autopilot" is the place for future agentic tools.
• Get Started: a new experience in Windows for running agents out of the box, plus a native Windows gateway for OpenClaw.
• Windows ML: llama.cpp is coming to it, so developers can try emerging models. Engadget says NVIDIA's Nemotron is set to launch a new model on October 15, and DeepSeek V5 Flash can run locally on machines with 60GB of memory.
• Copilot+ PCs: Davuluri said over 40 percent of laptops built for business are Copilot+ PCs.

Nadella opened by recalling a 1991 event that shaped his own career, when he could see what became the x86 architecture and Win32. "So I think today's event has the makings of something like that," he said, per Engadget.

• Shopping: if you want the first RTX Spark Windows laptop, preorders are open today and the first ones arrive October 16.
• Budget: the Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599, and the Dev Box is about $5,999, so this is premium hardware.
• Privacy: local AI means more of your work can stay on your own machine, though Copilot still uses the cloud for hard tasks.
• Games: an Arm-based chip means checking support for the titles you play before you buy.