Microsoft has revealed pricing and availability for its new flagship laptop, which is powered by NVIDIA chips and which Microsoft says outperforms comparable Apple products on some artificial intelligence tasks.

Microsoft executives said at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday that the Surface Laptop Ultra can process prompts twice as fast as the Apple MacBook Pro M5 when running local AI models, and generate video up to six times faster than comparable Apple devices.

The Surface Laptop Ultra will begin shipping soon, with a starting price of $2,599, about $400 less than the entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Microsoft is working to maintain the dominance of the Windows operating system in the AI era. Apple's desktop computers have seen a wave of demand growth because of their ability to run AI models.

The new Surface uses a chip NVIDIA developed for Windows laptops that can support both general computing and artificial intelligence computing. It also opens a new area of competition between NVIDIA and mainstream general-purpose personal computer (PC) processor makers such as Intel and AMD.

NVIDIA Chief Executive Jensen Huang appeared on stage with Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella to discuss the development of the new PC chip. Huang said, "We have completely redefined the personal computer."

Other Windows-based PC makers, including Dell and HP, have also developed devices powered by the new NVIDIA chip.