I tested DLSS 5 on a DGX Spark, and it showed me the future is bright for Nvidia's first laptop

At Microsoft-Nvidia's recent launch event, both companies unveiled plans to revolutionize the PC industry with what they call the "agentic PC era." Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella jointly announced that their new Surface Laptop Ultra, along with other Windows-based PCs running Nvidia's RTX Spark chip, would mark the start of this era.

Huang said that this new generation of PCs would redefine the capabilities of traditional computers, thanks to significant upgrades in Windows, cutting-edge Nvidia chips, and the growing popularity of AI foundation models and agentic software tools. Together, these advancements empower devices with processing power and productivity features that were once only possible through cloud-based frontier models, but now fit into portable devices or compact boxes.

This development opens up possibilities for more on-device AI processing, reducing reliance on cloud resources and improving overall efficiency. The highlight of the event was undoubtedly the new Surface Laptop Ultra, priced between $2,599 and $5,899, featuring a remarkable 15-inch mini-LED touchscreen display, a magnetic USB-C connector for the power adapter, and up to 12 hours of active web usage.

The laptop can run local AI models with over 120 billion parameters, depending on its system memory. Microsoft also introduced the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, priced at $5,999, which boasts 128 GB of RAM, 2 TB of storage, 20 CPU cores, and 6,144 GPU cores. Other PC manufacturers like Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and MSI will soon launch RTX Spark-based notebooks, while Dell and Asus will introduce small desktop systems.

These devices will run Windows 11 on Nvidia's N1X family of chips, offering up to 1 petaflop of FP4 AI performance. Microsoft also emphasized the gaming capabilities of these new devices, announcing support for popular games such as Gears of War and Call of Duty. This move could encourage more game developers to create titles for Windows on Arm devices, leading to increased compatibility across various platforms.

The event also showcased the improvements Microsoft made to Windows, particularly in making it more secure for AI agents and the foundation for a hybrid intelligence computing experience.