Microsoft Seeks a Surface RT & Copilot+ PC Do-Over with NVIDIA
Have you heard? Intel is back, baby. A year ago, the peddlers of Pentium were all-but left for dead having missed not just the mobile revolution, but the AI one as well. Intel was an $85B company, while NVIDIA, long their GPU-focused little brother, was about 40x their size in terms of market cap – by far the most valuable company in the world thanks to that AI boom. Worse, Intel's actual main rival, AMD, was making them look silly too. But a lot can change in a year. Like a CEO. And a bail-out investment from the US government. And the promises of new partnerships with Tesla and Apple...
Anyway, suddenly Intel is back at all-time highs – now a $600B company! And right on cue, Microsoft, long Intel's most-important partner, keeps finding new and interesting ways to slight them. This time with, who else? NVIDIA.
The writing may not yet be on the wall, but it's all over Xitter. Both Microsoft and NVIDIA are teasing a big announcement – "A new era of PC." – with the exact same cryptic language (technically, coordinates of Taipei, where Computex kicks off next week). And this follows hints by Jensen Huang of a "surprising new product" set to be announced. It seems fairly obvious at this point that it's NVIDIA's new CPU – but not the data center/AI variety. The one meant for general-purpose PCs.
I wrote about this prospect back in February when the news of the initiative first leaked. NVIDIA, of course, has been making general-purpose CPUs for a while – most notably for the Nintendo Switch and its predecessor Switch 2. But also most infamously for the Surface RT. Yes, Microsoft's first attempt at an ARM-based PC, which was a disaster from the get-go – trash can-worthy, some might say. Well, this sure looks to be a do-over of that project.
If/when NVIDIA announces their new CPU – and full SoC – next week, Microsoft is clearly going to be a key partner with a stab at a new Surface RT. They undoubtedly won't call it that, but it will be the same basic idea. But this time backed by NVIDIA in a very different place.
And again, Intel in a very different place too! After the RT debacle, Microsoft had to retreat back to the (quite literally) warm embrace of x86 for a while. But they kept the dream of Windows ARM alive undoubtedly because of the rise of not just the iPad, but Apple Silicon in general. That culminated in the launch of Copilot+ PCs a couple years back. While Intel was technically along for that ride, the initial partner there was Qualcomm, providing the ARM-based chips.
While not as big of a bellyflop as the Surface RT, clearly the Copilot+ PC movement hasn't lit the world on fire either. That was in part Microsoft's own fault as a series of privacy and just general AI missteps stopped the latest PC revolution yet again.
So now it sure seems like Microsoft is trying yet again. With NVIDIA yet again.
And again, this is a very different world with a very different NVIDIA. This move actually may make quite a bit of sense given NVIDIA's status in AI if nothing else. Sure, their CPUs are unproven for such purposes, but if the focal point will be AI-native devices, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better partner. Certainly from a marketing-perspective! Which, I suspect, we're going to get hit over the head with next week. As I wrote back in February:
It's that full NVIDIA SoC that Dell, Lenovo, and others seem to be circling. Undoubtedly in part to play up the NVIDIA angle, hoping to get some halo effect for PC sales. You could see the angle being something like "forget about Intel and AMD, NVIDIA, the company building the future of AI, is here with PC chips". Yes, they'd be touting "NVIDIA Inside".
While Microsoft clearly isn't the only partner for NVIDIA's would-be new CPUs – ASUS, we see you! – they're also undoubtedly meant to be the flagship partner. This might be both Surface RT done right and Copilot+ PCs done right – but with newer branding. But probably not better branding. I mean, it is still Microsoft, right?
Anyway, it seems like a smart potential play from all sides. Certainly in the face of the new MacBook Neo currently assaulting the PC market in a way Apple never has before. And now with Google set to do "Googlebooks" to try to own the concept of an "AI PC".
This makes sense for basically everyone but Intel. Reinvigorated, but perhaps on the outside looking in here yet again... 'Surface AI', anyone?
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
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