Nvidia and Microsoft opened preorders for RTX Spark laptops on 7 October for delivery from 16 October, with Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra starting at $2,599, Tom’s Hardware reported.
Key points
- The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box starts at $5,999.
- Nvidia says RTX Spark offers up to 128GB of unified memory and one petaflop of FP4 AI performance.
- Microsoft announced general availability of Microsoft Execution Containers for agents running under operating system control, according to Nvidia.
- Nvidia says RTX Spark systems are coming from eight PC makers, including Microsoft.
RTX Spark reaches Surface and other PCs
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella presented the hardware and software plans together at a Microsoft event in San Francisco on 7 October. The companies are co-engineering the two for AI agents that run on Windows PCs, Nvidia said.
RTX Spark pairs a Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 6,144 cores and a Grace CPU with up to 20 cores, connected at 600 GB/s, according to Nvidia. The company says the chip supports up to 128GB of unified memory and one petaflop of FP4 AI performance for running models locally.
Microsoft built the Surface Laptop Ultra around RTX Spark, Windows and Devices executive vice-president Pavan Davuluri said at the event. Nvidia says the machines can run its CUDA software stack, allowing developers to use tools and workflows across RTX Spark and other Nvidia hardware.
Microsoft also offers the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, which starts at $5,999. HP separately announced a $3,199 starting price for its OmniBook Ultra 16, Thurrott reported. Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, MSI and Gigabyte are preparing RTX Spark systems in laptop and compact-desktop designs, Nvidia said.
At the event, Microsoft claimed RTX Spark outperformed the M5 Pro in a MacBook Pro by up to 2.1× on initial text output, 4.3× on producing pictures and 6.2× on producing clips, Tom’s Hardware reported. Those figures were Microsoft’s performance claims rather than results from an independent test.
Microsoft Execution Containers reach general availability
Microsoft announced general availability of Microsoft Execution Containers, or MXC, as part of its Windows plans for agents, according to Nvidia. The company describes MXC as operating-system infrastructure that allows agents to work persistently in the background while Windows controls their execution.
Davuluri said Microsoft was building Windows components so agents could be secured, observed and governed. The containers are integrated with the operating system to control which data is shared with agents. Microsoft had presented the container technology in preview at Build 2026 in June, Thurrott reported.
The software plans extend beyond the new Nvidia-powered machines. Microsoft demonstrated changes to Windows 11 Search that let users request settings changes or arrange windows using natural language. The company also showed Copilot working with local files and models while continuing to use cloud models for some tasks.
Microsoft showed Copilot finding tax documents, renaming files and preparing an email for a user to approve. The company said those capabilities would arrive over the following few months. Thurrott reported that Microsoft positioned RTX Spark PCs as a premium tier for creators and developers seeking more local AI capacity.
DGX Station moves towards Windows desktops
Nvidia also previewed DGX Station for Windows, a deskside system using GB300 Grace Blackwell-class hardware. Davuluri said it would let users run large models locally. Nvidia said earlier DGX Station systems ran on Linux, requiring enterprise developers who used Windows applications to maintain a separate environment for heavier AI work.
The company is positioning RTX Spark across several types of PC work. It says creators can use the chip’s video encoding and decoding features, while its compact-desktop configuration is designed to keep local agents running continuously. Nvidia also claims RTX Spark can run games at 1440p at more than 100 frames per second with its graphics technologies.
Microsoft showed a Surface Laptop Ultra running GitHub Copilot and a game at the San Francisco event. Davuluri said hundreds of games would be available when the hardware launches. He also said Call of Duty would come to RTX Spark in 2027.
Nvidia says its RTX Spark compact desktops will go on sale in November.
