Most of the time the years of waiting are here. Nvidia has been making the graphics cards that power the Windows PC ecosystem for decades—now it wants to rule everything with “superchips,” starting with the RTX Spark.
Announced over the weekend at the Computex technology show in Taiwan, the RTX Spark chips include integrated memory, RTX graphics, and a new component: the N1 CPU. Nvidia already owns the entire world of AI processed in data centers with its GPUs. But now it’s making its AI-driven gameplay a reality as well. It’s just a tease of what’s to come, but these are the first Windows devices that might live up to the overused term “AI PC.”
Fake AI PC
Microsoft has been talking about the idea of “AI PCs” since 2024, but it never felt like a reality. Sure, its Copilot+ PCs had built-in neural processing units (NPUs) and started with 16 GB of RAM, but they didn’t have the functionality to run large language models in the space above your phone. Instead of building a hype machine around AI, Microsoft’s early promises about the next era of the PC felt empty.
While they need to be tested, and prices still haven’t been determined, these new Nvidia laptops look like real AI PCs. The combination of up to 128 GB of integrated memory, a high-performance Arm-based CPU, and the company’s trademark RTX graphics cards give you a computer that doesn’t sound like a MacBook Pro. This competition is important since the MacBook Pro (or Mac desktops) used to be the only serious option for AI enthusiasts looking to run entry-level models in the field.
Courtesy of Microsoft
Nvidia is opening up its technology to common participants in the Windows space, such as HP, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, and others. Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra, however, may be the pinnacle of this new breed of PC. It’s a perfect alternative to the MacBook Pro, which features a 15-inch Mini-LED and several ports in a package that appears to be the same size. Microsoft hasn’t had a Surface device in the works for years, and this one comes ahead of the rumored “MacBook Pro Ultra” coming later this year.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy. One of the problems with Windows laptops trying to compete with the MacBook Pro is battery life. Because they always need to rely on different graphics cards (usually from Nvidia), things like battery life and fan noise tend to be on the nose. Just this year, with the release of Intel’s new Core Ultra Series 3 chips, we’ve seen laptops like the Dell XPS 14 that can measure GPU performance and battery life close to the MacBook Pro level. But that configuration comes out of 64 GB of memory.
It’s not just about more memory. And the fact that the graphics will be as powerful as the direct RTX 5070. It is also a software layer (known as CUDA) that allows developers to access the GPU cores of the system. Nvidia has built a very advanced AI platform around CUDA due to its use in data centers. Bringing that AI processing capability to local PCs could mean AI performance that draws more on hardware than current computers. Mac development has grown rapidly over the past year, but it’s still far behind the scale Nvidia can do with the RTX Spark.
Starting a Revolution
Don’t be fooled into thinking these will be priced cheaply. Some reports estimate that prices for high-end configurations of RTX Spark laptops will be more than $4,000. That shouldn’t come as a shock, since that’s what a similarly configured MacBook Pro costs these days.
It is no longer difficult to envision a near future where local AI models are routinely used to guide many work projects. As agent models become easier to use and simplified, using them locally will become more popular for privacy reasons as well. We’re already seeing an uptick in demand for the Mac Mini, which is experiencing long shipping times that Apple says is due to incredibly fast AI adoption. RTX Spark has its eyes set on the Mac Mini as well, with several small desktop (SFF) PCs on the way.
