Microsoft Releases a New Line of Commercial Surface, Equipped with Intel 18A Process Chips

On May 19th local time, Microsoft officially released two new products aimed at the enterprise market: the Surface Pro for Business and the Surface Laptop for Business. Both devices are equipped with the Intel Core Ultra series 3 processor, manufactured using Intel's 18A process node, and positioned as a high-performance computing platform for edge AI.

Nancie Gaskill, vice president and chief operating officer of Microsoft's Surface business, said that the Surface is also reference hardware for Windows AI API and Foundry platform, designed specifically for enterprise developers who need a reliable hardware baseline, aiming to move daily work loads from the cloud to local device processing, thereby reducing the overall cost of AI infrastructure.

In terms of pricing, the Surface Laptop for Business starts at $1499 for the 13-inch model, and $1949 for the 13.8-inch and 15-inch models, all of which are now available in select markets. The Surface Pro for Business also starts at $1949 for the 13-inch model, supporting touch, voice, stylus, and keyboard multi-input methods, and offering a 5G option.

The Qualcomm version will be launched later this year. The Surface for Business equipped with the Snapdragon X2 processor, local AI inference capability compared to the previous generation has increased by up to 80%, further enhancing on-device AI processing capabilities.

It is worth noting that the market background for this release is not optimistic. IDC recently forecasted that global PC shipments will decline by 11.3% by 2026. Jean Philippe Bouchard, vice president of research at IDC, noted that rapid changes in the memory market will put significant pressure on PC prices, and some manufacturers may even reduce memory specifications to digest inventory, "market volatility will be extremely high over the next year"."