Microsoft RTX Spark is the name to remember this week. On October 7, 2026, at 10 a.m. Pacific (7 p.m. in Paris), Microsoft brings Satya Nadella, Pavan Davuluri and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang together in San Francisco. The agenda covers Windows, Surface and the RTX Spark chip, with one big promise: AI that runs locally on your PC.
Nothing official has been shared yet on pricing or release dates. Here is what we know from Microsoft’s announcements and the specialist press.
A Microsoft event built around local AI
Microsoft says the session is about how local AI will shape the next chapter of the PC. It will stream on YouTube, and several outlets call it the first dedicated Windows event in more than two years.
Jensen Huang’s presence is telling. It suggests the RTX Spark chip, built with NVIDIA, will be front and center. Microsoft has also made clear there will be no Windows 12: the work is about Windows 11 and tuning it for this new hardware.
Surface Laptop Ultra: what is already known
The expected star is the Surface Laptop Ultra, unveiled earlier this year at Build. It runs on a custom RTX Spark chip that pairs an Arm CPU with a Blackwell GPU. The specs shared so far:
- up to 128 GB of unified memory;
- roughly 1 petaflop of AI compute;
- up to 20 CPU cores and 6,144 GPU cores in the top configuration (18 cores and 5,120 for the other);
- a 15-inch PixelSense Ultra mini-LED display, up to 2,000 nits in HDR;
- HDMI and USB-A ports, a full-size SD card reader and a haptic touchpad.
According to HotHardware, the machine could run AI models of up to 120 billion parameters locally, with native CUDA support. Price and availability are still unconfirmed. Since the product is not on sale yet, we are not adding a purchase link.
Surface RTX Spark Dev Box and partners
Microsoft is also preparing a compact developer PC, the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, with the same ceiling: up to 1 petaflop and 128 GB of unified memory. Dell, Lenovo and ASUS have reportedly committed to their own RTX Spark laptops, per HotHardware. NVIDIA said at IFA 2026 that RTX Spark PCs would arrive in October.
Windows 11: the software side
To get the most from this chip, Microsoft is reworking Windows 11. Reported areas include task scheduling tuned for AI workloads, better handling of unified memory, and improvements to Prism, the layer that runs x86 apps on Arm. Microsoft and NVIDIA also talk about secure execution of AI agents through dedicated containers.
Windows 11 version 26H2, already available to Insiders, may also roll out more widely. Meanwhile the interface cleanup continues: a File Properties dialog with dark mode, a new Run window, a redesigned AutoPlay. The K2 initiative aims to fix the system’s long-standing annoyances, and the resizable taskbar is part of it.
What it means for you
The stakes are simple. Microsoft wants to show that a Windows PC can compete with Apple’s chip-powered Macs on local AI, without relying on the cloud. NVIDIA’s DGX Spark boxes, which run DGX OS, saw their price rise from $3,999 to $4,699 because of tight memory supply. RTX Spark machines will run Windows 11 instead, so pricing will be decisive.
More comes on October 7, then at the Ignite conference from November 17 to 20. We will update this article as soon as official announcements land.
Conclusion
With Microsoft RTX Spark, the Windows PC is making a bet on local AI. Prices, dates and real-world performance remain to be seen. Tell us in the comments what you hope to see on October 7.
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