By BigGo Finance
Publication Date: 2026-11-01 01:25:00
The new Surface models Microsoft unveiled in October adopted an unusual configuration for machines running Windows on the ARM64 architecture. ARM chips for Windows have until now been effectively limited to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series, but the new “Surface Laptop Ultra” is equipped with NVIDIA’s “RTX Spark” SoC. Combining a Blackwell GPU with Cortex-X925/A725 cores (up to 10 cores), it can be configured with up to 128GB of memory—a design that anticipates local inference of large language models. RTX Spark-powered machines are also slated to come from OEMs other than Microsoft, and the existence of an ASUSTeK Computer notebook has come to light.
There was technical rationale behind ARM processors for Windows being a Snapdragon-only choice. Narrowing the SoC architecture to a single type makes driver development easier, shortens the Windows porting period, and lightens the support burden on OEM makers. Yet that alone does not fully explain it. There appears to have been some kind of business relationship between Microsoft and Qualcomm, and as a result the porting target for Windows 10/11 remained fixed on Snapdragon for a long time.
The latest move means that arrangement is beginning to crumble. There is room to interpret it as Qualcomm having made sales to parties other than Microsoft possible, and indeed Snapdragon has also been adopted for Googlebook. The combined unit volume of smartphones, tablets, and PCs other than Windows far exceeds that of Windows PCs, and the…
