Running local AI models on Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra: What we found
The Surface Laptop Ultra is positioned as a high-performance alternative to Apple's MacBook Pro, specifically targeting AI developers. Testing shows the Blackwell GPU handles local AI workloads efficiently, though memory bandwidth remains a bottleneck for larger, dense models.
Why it matters
It highlights the growing competition in hardware optimized for local AI development, offering developers more choices outside the Apple ecosystem.
Microsoft is positioning the new Surface Laptop Ultra as an alternative to Apple’s MacBook Pros for creatives and developers — and especially AI developers.
Built on Nvidia’s N1X-based RTX Spark platform , with a Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 6,144 cores, a CPU with up to 20 cores, up to 128GB of unified memory, and a price that undercuts Apple, it’s a tempting alternative if you want to run local AI models and also want to have a powerful machine for editing videos and gaming on the go.
This is The New Stack , so I’m leaving the gaming benchmarks and creator use cases to others. My focus in testing the unit was on running AI workloads.
I’ve been using the Surface Laptop Ultra in its high-end $4,300 GPU and CPU configuration with 64GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD for the last week, including while on the road.
Also covering this story
5 other newsrooms covered this event. We read each version separately.
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Surface Laptop Ultra review: The closest Windows has ever had to a MacBook Pro
The Surface Laptop Ultra delivers on most of Microsoft's promises
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