Microsoft and NVIDIA have launched a powerful new laptop designed to run AI directly on the device, rather than relying entirely on the cloud. Priced from NZ$5,500 to NZ$12,200, it offers a glimpse into the future of AI-powered computing.
Speaking with Ryan Bridge on Herald Now, Paul Spain, CEO of Gorilla Technology, discussed the new hardware after attending the launch event in Sydney. Paul described the laptop as part of Microsoft’s attempt to differentiate itself and compete with Apple, with a distinctly MacBook-like design and the ability to support AI processing locally as well as in the cloud.
For businesses, this introduces the idea of “hybrid AI”. Rather than sending every request to a data centre, some workloads could run locally on a laptop, while more demanding tasks continue to use cloud services. As Paul explained, many of the leading AI models people currently use, including Claude and ChatGPT, are generally cloud-based. Local processing is more commonly associated with open-weight models, although this could change as the technology develops.
The financial argument could become important for organisations with heavy AI usage. Cloud providers charge based on the computing resources used, often measured through tokens. Some users are already spending thousands of dollars each week or month on these costs. Processing suitable workloads locally could reduce the amount of work sent to the cloud and, in turn, lower some token expenses.
Most people are accustomed to spending around $1,000 on a laptop, making a $12,000 device difficult to justify unless its capabilities deliver clear and regular value. Paul Spain believes there is a market for it, but that the market is currently fairly small.
The bigger question is what happens next. If leading AI providers make their models available in hybrid configurations, laptops capable of local processing could become more attractive. For now, the technology points towards a future where AI agents may automatically decide whether a task should run on the device or in the cloud.