Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) releases new flagship laptop! Equipped with NVIDIA Corporation chips, outperforming Apple Inc. MacBook in some AI tasks.

Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) held a Surface new product launch event on Wednesday, announcing the price and availability of its new flagship laptop Surface Laptop Ultra, which is equipped with NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) chips, and said it outperforms comparable Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) products in some artificial intelligence (AI) tasks. According to Microsoft Corporation executives on Wednesday, the Surface Laptop Ultra can process prompts twice as fast as the Apple Inc. MacBook Pro M5 when running local AI models, and generate video up to six times faster than comparable Apple Inc. devices. The Surface Laptop Ultra is now available for pre-order and will begin shipping on October 16; its starting price is $2,599, about $400 less than the entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro. This new Surface device is built on an NVIDIA Corporation chip designed for Windows laptops. The chip will support both general-purpose computing and AI computing. This also opens up a new area of competition between NVIDIA Corporation and mainstream general-purpose personal computer (PC) processor manufacturers such as Intel Corporation (INTC.US) and AMD (AMD.US). NVIDIA Corporation Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang took the stage with Microsoft Corporation Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella to discuss the development of this new PC chip. Huang said, "We have completely reinvented the personal computer." Other Windows-based PC manufacturers such as Dell Technologies, Inc. Class C (DELL.US) and HP Inc. (HPQ.US) have also developed devices equipped with this new NVIDIA Corporation chip. This is not the first time Microsoft Corporation has tried to use the AI boom to boost device sales. In the summer of 2024, Microsoft Corporation, together with partners such as Qualcomm (QCOM.US), launched a large-scale marketing campaign for AI-optimized PCs. Microsoft Corporation promised at the time that such devices would embed AI functions directly into the device and achieve this by adopting more powerful chips based on designs from Arm Holdings (ARM.US). But the launch of this product line was plagued by privacy concerns raised by one of its flagship features, which was originally intended to provide users with a useful record of device operations. As Apple Inc.'s desktop computers have seen a wave of demand growth in recent years due to their excellent performance in running AI models, Microsoft Corporation is striving to maintain the dominance of the Windows operating system in the AI era. According to estimates from research institutions, although Microsoft Corporation Windows is the most popular PC operating system, the company is not among the world's top six PC manufacturers by shipments. With advances in AI and chip technology, tech giants including Microsoft Corporation, Apple Inc., and Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOGL.US) are working to enable users to run more AI workloads locally on devices rather than relying on the cloud. Nadella said that over time, developers and users will expect AI tools to be powered by both local hardware and cloud services. In addition, during the event, Microsoft Corporation executives explained the advantages of using Windows for AI-related work. Developers can leverage the computing power of the new devices without paying cloud service providers, thereby saving costs and improving security. They also highlighted Windows security features that can be used to monitor and control the behavior of AI agents. The company also said that Meta (META.US) will launch a Windows version of its popular Muse AI agent to take advantage of the surge in popularity of this personal agentwhich has surpassed ChatGPT to top the Apple Inc. App Store.