SNACK: 3-line summary
- Microsoft has opened preorders for Surface Laptop Ultra, built around NVIDIA RTX Spark for local AI workloads.
- Microsoft lists availability beginning October 16, with a starting MSRP of $2,599.
- The 15-inch touchscreen does not support Surface Pen, Surface Slim Pen or other pen input.
Microsoft opened preorders for Surface Laptop Ultra and Surface RTX Spark Dev Box on October 7, 2026. The new hardware is aimed at creators and developers who want to run large AI models locally, with a laptop and a compact desktop offering two ways to use the same RTX Spark platform.
Snackgirls react
AIKO: A model and a creative app sharing one memory pool: now that’s an interesting scheduling problem. I’d like to see the real workload behind that theoretical petaflop.
Nea: I can picture browsing design drafts by touch. I’d miss being able to sketch a small change directly on that same screen, though.
A shared memory pool for AI and creative work
The NVIDIA RTX Spark Superchip pairs a Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 6,144 cores and a Grace CPU with up to 20 cores. The laptop offers up to 128GB of unified memory depending on configuration, shared by the CPU and GPU; the GPU can address less than the total system memory.
Microsoft says Surface Laptop Ultra can run AI models with more than 120 billion parameters locally. Its quoted maximum of 1 petaflop is theoretical FP4 performance using sparsity—not FP32 throughput or an independently tested result for real workloads.
Touch controls, but no drawing pen
The 15-inch PixelSense Ultra screen lets you interact with footage, designs and datasets by touch. It does not support Surface Pen, Surface Slim Pen or other pen input.
The included Magnetic Connect charging cable attaches magnetically to the right-side USB-C port. That same port still supports data, video and other USB-C devices.
Alongside it are two additional USB-C ports, HDMI, USB-A, an SD card reader and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Two devices, different launch plans
Surface Laptop Ultra has a starting MSRP of $2,599, with preorders through Microsoft.com and select retailers worldwide. Microsoft says availability begins October 16. The announcement does not confirm local prices, stock or an October 16 launch for South Korea or Japan.
Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is a compact developer-focused desktop using the same RTX Spark platform, distinct from the cloud service Microsoft Dev Box. Its MSRP is $5,999, with preorders exclusively through Microsoft.com in the U.S. and shipping scheduled for November 2026.
Sources and checked date: October 9, 2026
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