Thoughts on AI from the brighter side

In brief11 October 2026

Local AI fits in a laptop – but not cheaply

Microsoft has set a price and date for Surface Laptop Ultra, built to run large AI models directly on the computer. It shows both the promise of local AI and the continuing cost of large amounts of memory.

On 7 October, Microsoft opened pre-orders for Surface Laptop Ultra. Availability begins on 16 October through selected retailers, with a starting price of $2,599. Microsoft's announcement gives no Swedish price, and configurations vary by market. The laptop uses Nvidia's RTX Spark and can be configured with up to 128 GB…