Here’s Why Microsoft Is Betting on the Nvidia RTX Spark-Powered Surface Laptop Ultra

Alongside Nvidia’s keynote at Computex, Microsoft announced a new Surface PC—the Surface Laptop Ultra—which will feature Nvidia’s new RTX Spark superchip.

Slated to launch this fall, the Surface Laptop Ultra bridges the gap between thin-and-light ultraportables and beefy workstation laptops, offering the template for a new consumer category that can drive a full petaflop of AI-ready compute power. It’s the next phase of evolution for AI PCs, combining Copilot+ features with the raw muscle to power on-device AI models and agents.

At Computex, to learn more, I sat down with Microsoft’s Poonam Mor Sigroha, corporate vice president for Windows silicon and systems integration; Brett Ostrum, corporate vice president for Surface; and Robyn McLaughlin, Senior Director, Surface Product. Our interview is lightly edited for clarity.

An Agentic AI Platform

John Burek: RTX Spark looks like it will first be an AI agentic-dominant platform. Is there anything you would say that, in a couple of years, a mainstream consumer would be looking at RTX Spark for? What do you see in terms of the roadmap that was presented by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and also your vision for this two years, three years, four years down the road?

Poonam Mor Sigroha: I believe when we think of mainstream, we think of that being a very different class of devices than what we’re introducing today. These devices are primarily focused on developers, people who want to run AI agents locally. In a few years from now, as things start to shift, maybe many of these capabilities will be available downstream. But because there is so much change and shift that’s happening across the industry, that’s really hard to predict.

(Credit: John Burek)

JB: In terms of the unified memory modules that we’re seeing with these initial RTX Spark machines, the cost of memory these days is obviously a concern for every industry that it touches. Is there a world in which these systems are not reliant on, say, 128GB or 64GB of memory in their initial iterations, or is that memory crunch likely to touch these machines?

PS: These devices will be available in different memory configurations. It’s just that those devices will have different sets of capabilities.

JB: Is there any reason we could not see an RTX Spark in the near term in, say, a smaller laptop with a 13-inch or 14-inch screen? Is it just the thermal issues that led to this initial model having a larger screen? 

(Credit: John Burek)

PS: I would say we did a lot of work to understand our customer base, and we designed these devices for that customer base, and we believe these screen sizes are more an indication of that than just the thermal capability.

JB: So they want a larger screen, they want something that’s typeable, and it’s probably their main machine? 

PS: They want something portable, but also powerful, and something that gives them enough real estate from a screen perspective. 

Surface Laptop Ultra: Connectivity Contrasts

JB: In terms of the connectivity on this machine, can you elaborate a little bit on the choices of ports and use cases? 

Brett Ostrum: Obviously, USB-C for connectivity and charging. HDMI, because a lot of the workflows and the setups facilitate that. Full-size USB-A for legacy devices, so there are no dongles required. And an SD card slot, because it just makes it easier to get information on and off.

JB: I’m actually surprised by the HDMI, because you can do DisplayPort over USB-C. 

BO: We get a lot of requests for HDMI.

(Credit: John Burek)

JB:  In terms of the touchpad, did you set out to make a much larger pad, or were you like, “Hey, we’ve got this much space left over, and we might as well make it as big as we can?”

BO:  We are constantly looking at usability, aesthetics, and functionality, and so this is a case where we had the space, so we made it bigger. It is 30% bigger to really showcase advanced haptics.

JB: Can you actually elaborate a little more on the haptics? Is it an OS-level thing that app developers can take advantage of?

(Credit: John Burek)

BO: So it is in the hardware, in the OS, and then independent software vendors (ISVs) can also support it. 

Robyn McLaughlin: Affinity by Canva, DaVinci Resolve, Concept, Kindle…those are some that I have off the top of my head. Some of those are video editing. Some of them are drawing. Maybe you’re selecting a different color, or if you’re video editing, it’s going to be when you get to a certain point. It’s also evolving all the time. We’re working with a ton more partners to try to evolve that.

RTX Spark: About the Chip

JB: OK, so we haven’t talked too much in detail about the actual chip. 

BO: RTX Spark is an incredibly powerful chip, but for us to get the maximum performance out of it, we had to start all the way from the very beginning with how we were going to deal with thermals. We tried to make the motherboard as small as possible to maximize the size of the fans. That is all about how we maximize the performance peak for the RTX Spark and the endurance of that silicon and the solution for the customer. From the silicon that runs this machine, but also all the way through the entire design cycle, we are trying to maximize what the device is capable of.

(Credit: John Burek)

JB: It’s interesting looking at it in person for the first time. It’s very similar to previous Surfaces in a lot of ways, but the inside is completely engineered for this chip. It’s not just retrofitting a chip into the chassis.

(Credit: John Burek)

BO: We have best-in-class keyboards; we hang on to that. We’ve shipped haptic trackpads before. We’ve experimented with a design like this, and it turns out that it’s a very good solution to be able to get air to come in through the sides while it feels good, and it makes it look thin. So, it’s a great example of how engineering and design partner together to come up with a solution that works across the board.

The Display and Audio

JB: In terms of the display, is mini LED a first for the Surface line? 

BO: It’s a first for us.

JB: Anything about the audio?

BO: The audio pipeline will process audio that is outside the range that you can hear, and so we stopped processing audio that is outside the audible range. That ends up adding battery life, and that lets us add a brighter display with a high refresh rate that customers want. It’s part of the overall balance of what the system is capable of.

JB: What about the onboard camera? Is anything special happening there?

BO: I look forward to the benchmarks comparing this camera to the Apple MacBook Pro.

JB: OK, fair enough. 

About Our Expert

John Burek

Executive Editor and PC Labs Director

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Experience

I have been a technology journalist for almost 30 years and have covered just about every kind of computer gear—from the 386SX to 64-core processors—in my long tenure as an editor, a writer, and an advice columnist. For almost a quarter-century, I worked on the seminal, gigantic Computer Shopper magazine (and later, its digital counterpart), aka the phone book for PC buyers, and the nemesis of every postal delivery person. I was Computer Shopper’s editor in chief for its final nine years, after which much of its digital content was folded into PCMag.com. I also served, briefly, as the editor in chief of the well-known hard-core tech site Tom’s Hardware.

During that time, I’ve built and torn down enough desktop PCs to equip a city block’s worth of internet cafes. Under race conditions, I’ve built PCs from bare-board to bootup in under 5 minutes. I never met a screwdriver I didn’t like.

I was also a copy chief and a fact checker early in my career. (Editing and polishing technical content to make it palatable for consumer audiences is my forte.) I also worked as an editor of scholarly science books, and as an editor of “Dummies”-style computer guidebooks for Brady Books (now, BradyGames). I’m a lifetime New Yorker, a graduate of New York University’s journalism program, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

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