Microsoft unveils Surface Laptop Ultra and new AI capabilities

After a two-year hiatus, Microsoft has held its first live event. The technology giant presented the new Surface Laptop Ultra, alongside details on upcoming changes to Windows 11 and plans for local artificial intelligence development. The company's vision centres on integrating autonomous AI agents, aiming to transform the daily workflow for both developers and general users.

Technical specifications of the Surface Laptop Ultra

The new Surface Laptop Ultra is the first device powered by Nvidia's new RTX Spark system-on-chip (SoC). The company first teased the model in May 2026. The laptop carries a starting price of $2,599 and is available for pre-order immediately, with official sales and deliveries commencing on 16 October.

Buyers can choose from several configurations. The device features a Blackwell architecture graphics processor containing either 5,120 or 6,144 cores. Additionally, the laptop offers up to 128 gigabytes of LPDDR5x unified memory. Unlike traditional graphics cards with fixed video memory (VRAM), unified memory enables the system to dynamically allocate resources between AI workloads and graphical tasks.

Focus on developers and gamers

Although the Surface Laptop Ultra is primarily tailored towards developers and running AI models locally, significant emphasis during the event was placed on its graphical capabilities. During the demonstration, Microsoft showcased the system running the upcoming title Gears of War: E-Day.

This example demonstrated that even without a traditional discrete gaming graphics card, the laptop can smoothly run demanding AAA-class games. The device is designed to be equally effective for testing AI models and handling heavy graphical workloads.