‘Reinvented’ PC: Microsoft says new laptop with Nvidia chip outperforms MacBooks on AI tasks

Microsoft has unveiled a new flagship laptop, the Surface Laptop Ultra, built on Nvidia chips, which outperforms Apple's MacBook Pro M5 on some artificial intelligence tasks. At an event in San Francisco, Microsoft executives claimed the Surface Laptop Ultra can return prompts from locally run AI models twice as fast as the MacBook Pro M5, and generate videos six times quicker.

The Ultra will begin shipping soon, starting at US$2,599, approximately US$400 less than the entry-level 16-inch version of the MacBook Pro. The new Surface device, which leverages an Nvidia chip for Windows laptops, is designed to power both general-purpose and AI computing, setting a new competitive landscape between Nvidia and Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in the PC industry.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella joined forces to discuss the development of the new chip. Other PC manufacturers, such as Dell Technologies and HP, utilizing the Windows operating system, have also developed devices with the new Nvidia chip. Microsoft emphasizes the benefits of using Windows for AI-related work, stating that developers can save money and enhance security by using computing power on the device rather than relying on cloud providers.

They also highlighted Windows security features for monitoring and controlling AI agents. Nadella suggested that developers and users will eventually expect AI tools to be powered by a mix of local hardware and cloud services. Microsoft launched a marketing campaign in summer 2024 with partners like Qualcomm for AI-optimized PCs, promising on-device AI features facilitated by more powerful chips built on Arm Holdings designs.

However, the launch faced privacy concerns over a flagship feature intended to record users' actions on a device. Analyst Gartner previously predicted that surging memory costs would delay AI PCs from becoming the majority of shipments until 2028.