NVIDIA and Microsoft announced a new line of Windows PCs and workstations powered by the RTX Spark superchip at the Computex and GTC Taipei trade shows. The RTX Spark combines an Arm-based CPU with a Blackwell GPU, designed to run AI agents, creative applications, and games locally. Hardware partners include ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, MSI, Acer, and GIGABYTE.
The RTX Spark Superchip and N1X Processor
The RTX Spark is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) developed in collaboration with MediaTek. It combines a 20-core Arm-based Grace CPU with a Blackwell RTX GPU containing 6,144 CUDA cores and fifth-generation Tensor Cores, connected via NVLink-C2C. The chip supports up to 128GB of unified LPDDR5X memory.
NVIDIA has also referred to the processor as the N1X. The chip delivers up to 1 petaflop of AI compute performance and is designed to run AI models with up to 120 billion parameters locally.
The RTX Spark is a full-fledged Windows version of the NVIDIA DGX Spark mini-computer, which runs Ubuntu Linux and is priced around $4,800.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra
Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop Ultra, a 15-inch laptop powered by the RTX Spark SoC. Key specifications include:
- Display: 15-inch mini-LED PixelSense Ultra touchscreen with a 3:2 aspect ratio, 262 PPI, up to 2,000 nits peak HDR brightness, 120Hz refresh rate, and VRR support.
- Memory: Up to 128GB unified memory (soldered, not user-upgradable).
- Storage: User-swappable Type-2280 M.2 SSD.
- Ports: Two USB-C, one USB-A, one full-size HDMI, a full-size SD card reader, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The USB-C port on the right side is reportedly wider; Microsoft declined to comment on the reason.
- Trackpad: The largest haptic trackpad on a Surface device; replaceable.
- Weight: Under 4.5 pounds.
- Chassis: All-metal, available in Platinum and Nightfall (dark silver and black).
- Cooling: Dual fans and dual heat pipes.
Microsoft corporate vice president of Surface product Andrew Hill stated the laptop is "the most powerful thing we've ever made." The device does not carry the Copilot Plus PC branding, though it supports those features.
Availability is scheduled for fall 2025. Pricing has not been announced.
Microsoft Surface RTX Spark Dev Box
Microsoft also announced the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a mini desktop PC for developers. It uses the same RTX Spark chip with 128GB unified memory and a 100W sustained thermal envelope. The chassis is aluminum with 1,000 air vents.
The Dev Box is designed for sustained AI workloads including model training, fine-tuning, agentic AI pipelines, and DLSS tasks. It runs Windows 11 Pro.
Pricing has not been announced. It will be available later in the year exclusively through Microsoft.com.
DGX Station for Windows
NVIDIA announced the DGX Station for Windows, a deskside workstation powered by the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip. It includes a 72-core Grace CPU and a Blackwell Ultra GPU with up to 748GB of coherent memory and up to 20 petaflops of FP4 performance.
The system is designed for enterprise AI workloads including pretraining, fine-tuning, and high-throughput inference. It supports models up to 1 trillion parameters. An optional RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation GPU is available for visualization and simulation. Networking is provided by NVIDIA ConnectX-8 SuperNIC at up to 800 Gb/s.
NVIDIA OpenShell, developed with Microsoft, provides a secure runtime for autonomous agents on Windows, using Windows security and containment primitives to isolate agents in sandboxes.
Availability is expected in Q4 2025 from ASUS, Dell Technologies, GIGABYTE, HP, MSI, and Supermicro.
Software and Ecosystem
NVIDIA and Microsoft are collaborating to enable secure on-device AI agents on Windows. New Windows security primitives and the NVIDIA OpenShell runtime provide identity, containment, policy, and privacy controls for agents.
Over 100 software providers and game developers support the platform, including Adobe, Blender, CapCut, Riot Games, and Xbox. Adobe is re-architecting Photoshop and Premiere for RTX Spark, claiming up to 2x faster AI and graphics performance.
ASUS announced the ProArt P16 and P14 laptops with RTX Spark, targeting creators and AI developers. The ProArt ecosystem includes tools such as ProArt Creator Hub, MuseTree, and StoryCube.
Market Context and Analyst Views
NVIDIA is entering the consumer PC processor market, competing with Apple and Qualcomm in the Arm-based Windows PC segment. The company previously attempted Arm-based Windows devices with Microsoft in 2013.
Analysts noted the RTX Spark is a long-term growth opportunity rather than an immediate earnings driver. Counterpoint Research co-founder Neil Shah described the announcement as "revolutionizing how PCs would look like in the next 10 years." Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia, said the move is significant given growing demand for personal AI agents.
Following the announcement:
- NVIDIA shares rose approximately 2-4% in trading.
- Microsoft shares rose approximately 2.3%.
- Intel and AMD shares declined in pre-market and early trading.
NVIDIA Data Center Announcements
NVIDIA stated that its next-generation Vera Rubin AI chips for data centers have entered full production. The Vera CPU features 88 Olympus cores and LPDDR5X memory with up to 1.2TB/s bandwidth. NVIDIA claims it delivers 1.8 times faster task completion than x86 CPUs based on internal benchmarks.
Early customers include Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Dell, Oracle, and CoreWeave. The Vera Rubin platform combines Vera CPUs, Rubin GPUs, NVLink networking, BlueField-4 DPUs, and Spectrum-6 Ethernet into rack-scale systems.
NVIDIA also introduced the DSX platform for designing and operating AI data center infrastructure, and the Isaac GR00T humanoid robot reference design.
Additional Notes
- Micron reported its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) capacity is sold out through 2026.
- Pricing for all RTX Spark devices has not been finalized, partly due to RAM price volatility. Analysts expect devices with 128GB unified memory to cost north of $3,000.
- The DGX Spark 128GB model is priced between $3,499 and $4,699.
- The DGX Station with GB300 chip is priced over $100,000.