Microsoft and NVIDIA unveil RTX Spark PCs and AI agents

Microsoft and NVIDIA opened RTX Spark PC preorders: a laptop from about $2,599 on October 16 and a Dev Box near $6,000 in November.

At a San Francisco event, Jensen Huang and Satya Nadella said NVIDIA and Microsoft are co-engineering Windows PCs for on-device AI agents. The Surface Laptop Ultra, on Nvidia’s RTX Spark (Blackwell GPU and Grace CPU), ships October 16; The Verge and Ars price it from $2,599 with 24GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and configs up to 128GB of unified memory, while TechCrunch said it starts at $2,600 or $3,700 depending on the chip and reaches $5,900. The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a Project Zenith mini PC, is on preorder for November 2026 at $5,999 according to The Verge and Ars—or from $6,000 per TechCrunch—with 128GB unified memory, a 100-watt envelope, and developer-oriented Windows 11; Microsoft says it can run models above 120 billion parameters, and NVIDIA says RTX Spark systems offer about one petaflop of FP4 and can run the 125B Qwen 3.8 Flash Next locally. Ars specifies Blackwell GPUs of 5,120 or 6,144 cores, versus NVIDIA’s “up to 6,144,” and the outlets list different preinstalled tools. Windows 11 updates include generally available Execution Containers—promised for all Windows 11 users, with Ars citing process, session, WSL, or MicroVM isolation—plus a three-tab Copilot, search that can run system tasks, and Hybrid Intelligence for local-file actions and llama.cpp, DeepSeek, and Nemotron. NVIDIA also previewed DGX Station for Windows on GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra with 748GB of coherent memory and up to 20 petaFLOPS FP4; TechCrunch added a Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition at $3,800 and up to $1,000 off MacBook Pro trade-ins.

• At a San Francisco event, Jensen Huang and Satya Nadella said NVIDIA and Microsoft are co-engineering Windows PCs for on-device AI agents.
• Surface Laptop Ultra ships October 16 from $2,599 (The Verge, Ars) with 24GB RAM and 512GB storage, or from $2,600 or $3,700 by chip up to $5,900 (TechCrunch), with configs up to 128GB unified memory.
• Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a Project Zenith device, is on preorder for November 2026 at $5,999 (The Verge, Ars) or from $6,000 (TechCrunch), with 128GB unified memory, a 100-watt envelope, and claimed support for models above 120 billion…
• RTX Spark pairs a Blackwell GPU (Ars: 5,120 or 6,144 cores; NVIDIA: up to 6,144) with a Grace CPU and about one petaflop FP4; NVIDIA says systems can run the 125B Qwen 3.8 Flash Next locally.
• NVIDIA previewed Windows DGX Station on GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra with 748GB coherent memory and up to 20 petaFLOPS FP4 for local models up to trillion-parameter scale.
• Microsoft Execution Containers are generally available so agents run under OS control with Microsoft Security and Agent 365; TechCrunch said they will reach all Windows 11 users, and Ars listed process, session, WSL, or MicroVM isolation.
• Ars adds a three-tab Copilot (Home, Code, Autopilot) and search that can run system tasks; Hybrid Intelligence covers local-file actions plus llama.cpp, DeepSeek, and Nemotron, and Magnetic Connect snaps a charger onto USB-C.
• Tool bundles differ: The Verge lists VS Code, Git, GitHub CLI, Copilot, WSL, Python, and Node; TechCrunch lists VS Code, Copilot CLI, WSL, and PowerShell 7. TechCrunch also cites a $3,800 Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition and up to $1,000 off…