Quantum processor, new devices and AI models. Six updates from Microsoft Build 2026

At Microsoft Build 2026 the company showcased a number of new products. These include local deployment of large language models, agent AI, a new line of AI devices, Microsoft AI’s own models and progress in quantum computing.

AIN gathered six of the most interesting announcements from the conference.

Personal AI supercomputer: Surface RTX Spark Dev Box

Microsoft announced the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box — a compact developer computer designed for local AI model design and training.

The device runs on NVIDIA’s RTX Spark superchip, which combines the NVIDIA Grace CPU and the NVIDIA Blackwell RTX GPU.

The computer has 128 GB of unified memory and delivers up to 1 petaflop of AI compute directly on the desktop. This is enough to run models with over 120 billion parameters and a 1 million-token context window locally.

The gadget ships with Windows 11 Pro, optimized for developers at the image level. Out of the box it integrates WSL 2 with CUDA support, VS Code, GitHub Copilot, Git, Python and Node.js.

The device will go on sale in the US at the end of this year.

Windows received new tools for AI development

Microsoft introduced a number of updates for Windows 11 aimed at developers and agent systems.

Key new features include:

• Coreutils for Windows — a set of Linux-like console utilities;
• WSL Containers for working with Linux containers;
• Intelligent Terminal with support for AI agents;
• Windows Developer Configurations for automatic development environment setup;
• Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) — a new level of isolation for agents and AI applications.

The company also announced local Aion-family models that will run without a cloud connection.

Microsoft unveiled Project Solara — a platform for agent-first devices

Microsoft introduced a new hardware-and-software platform, Project Solara, aimed at creating specialized gadgets that operate not on apps but on AI agents managed by the MDEP operating system.

Within the platform, the company developed Just-in-time UI — the ability for AI to autonomously generate and adapt an interface to any screen size without developer involvement. The company demonstrated two conceptual devices.

Badge. A lightweight badge-shaped device for mobile workers (medics, retail employees). Equipped with a touchscreen, fingerprint scanner, camera, 5G modem and a microphone array for continuous interaction with an assistant by voice;

Desk. A desktop companion with a touchscreen, facial recognition and a UWB presence sensor based on a MediaTek IoT processor. It can operate standalone, as a companion to a PC, or as a thin client for cloud Windows 365.

In the coming months Project Solara will begin pilots in industries together with companies such as CVS Health, Best Buy, Target and others.

OpenAI, NVIDIA and Manus integrate their agent systems into Windows

Microsoft announced a collaboration with OpenAI, NVIDIA, Manus, Hermes and OpenClaw.

They will all use the new Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) technology to safely run autonomous agents on Windows.

In particular:

• OpenAI plans to use MXC for secure agent code execution;
• NVIDIA will integrate the OpenShell platform;
• OpenClaw received Windows support;
• Manus is working on agent integration for enterprise use.

Seven new artificial intelligence models from Microsoft AI

The Microsoft AI division led by Mustafa Suleyman announced a new family of MAI models.

They include:

• MAI-Thinking-1 — a model for complex logical reasoning;
• MAI-Code-1-Flash — a model for programming and GitHub Copilot;
• MAI-Image-2.5 — image generation and editing;
• MAI-Transcribe-1.5 — a speech recognition model;
• MAI-Voice-2 — voice generation with natural-sounding output in 15 languages.

Microsoft also introduced the concept of Frontier Tuning — an approach that allows companies to further train models directly on their own workflows and data.

Majorana 2 quantum processor

The new Majorana 2 processor uses topological qubits based on a new material stack that uses lead instead of aluminum.

The company says that:

• qubit stability has increased by more than 1,000 times;
• qubit lifetimes have grown from milliseconds to over 20 seconds;
• individual qubits operated for more than a minute.

Thanks to this, Microsoft expects to build a scalable fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029, twice as fast as previous estimates.

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