Windows is back on the Microsoft menu
Windows is back on the Microsoft menu
Windows 重回微软核心菜单
At its annual Build developer conference, Microsoft put Windows front and center. 在年度 Build 开发者大会上，微软将 Windows 置于核心地位。
I can’t remember the last time Microsoft kicked off a Build keynote with Windows front and center, but that’s exactly what CEO Satya Nadella did this week. Nadella didn’t address the issues Microsoft is trying to fix in Windows 11 but chose to woo the audience with Microsoft’s slick Surface RTX Spark Dev Kit instead, calling it a “dream machine.” 我不记得微软上一次在 Build 主题演讲开场时将 Windows 置于核心位置是什么时候了，但这正是首席执行官萨提亚·纳德拉（Satya Nadella）本周所做的事情。纳德拉没有谈及微软试图解决的 Windows 11 问题，而是选择用微软精致的 Surface RTX Spark 开发套件来吸引观众，并称其为“梦想之机”。
Nadella unveiled the new Surface hardware just days after Nvidia officially returned to Windows on Arm with its new RTX Spark chips. Both companies are talking up these chips as some kind of new beginning for PCs, and it’s clear that RTX Spark will drive local AI workloads in a way that Microsoft’s previous Copilot Plus PCs haven’t yet managed. 就在英伟达（Nvidia）凭借新款 RTX Spark 芯片正式回归 Windows on Arm 平台几天后，纳德拉便发布了这款全新的 Surface 硬件。两家公司都将这些芯片吹捧为个人电脑的一种新开端，显而易见，RTX Spark 将以一种微软之前的 Copilot Plus PC 尚未实现的方式，推动本地 AI 工作负载的发展。
Build really drove home that message this week, with Windows positioned as an all-important part of Microsoft’s AI agent efforts. Microsoft’s original mission under Bill Gates was a computer on every desk and in every home, and Nadella reframed that as “unmetered intelligence on every desk and in every home” within a few minutes of his keynote beginning. 本周的 Build 大会确实强化了这一信息，Windows 被定位为微软 AI 智能体战略中至关重要的一部分。比尔·盖茨时代微软最初的使命是“让每张桌子和每个家庭都有一台电脑”，而纳德拉在主题演讲开始后的几分钟内，将其重新定义为“让每张桌子和每个家庭都拥有无限的智能”。
It set the stage for Microsoft and Nvidia to position their new Windows PCs as a potential solution for costly, usage-based pricing of cloud-based AI models. As local compute grows in capability, there’s a clear gap that Microsoft and Nvidia can fill with powerful hardware you actually own. 这为微软和英伟达将新款 Windows PC 定位为云端 AI 模型高昂按量计费模式的潜在解决方案奠定了基础。随着本地计算能力的增强，微软和英伟达可以通过你真正拥有的强大硬件来填补这一明显的市场空白。
“I think we, as Microsoft, have the responsibility for building the best possible AI stack that we can on [Windows], and obviously drive the best AI stack that we can in the cloud,” says Windows chief Pavan Davuluri in an interview with Notepad. Davuluri thinks that Microsoft is in a good position to capitalize on hybrid compute, where chips like the RTX Spark will handle a lot of local workloads and intelligently hand off to the cloud when they need something more powerful. “我认为作为微软，我们有责任在 [Windows] 上构建尽可能最好的 AI 技术栈，并显然也要在云端推动最好的 AI 技术栈，”Windows 负责人帕万·达武鲁里（Pavan Davuluri）在接受 Notepad 采访时表示。达武鲁里认为，微软在利用混合计算方面处于有利地位，像 RTX Spark 这样的芯片将处理大量的本地工作负载，并在需要更强算力时智能地切换到云端。
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is even more bullish about local AI compute. He wants to turn PCs into devices that work for you, eliminating that idle time when PCs are switched off or you’re not using them. “In the future, if I need my laptop to do something, I just text it with WhatsApp,” said Huang earlier this week. “You don’t want to necessarily run everything in the cloud, because if you can run it locally, it’s free.” 英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋对本地 AI 计算更为看好。他希望将个人电脑变成能为你工作的设备，消除电脑关机或闲置时的空窗期。“未来，如果我需要我的笔记本电脑做某事，我只需通过 WhatsApp 给它发条信息，”黄仁勋本周早些时候说道。“你不一定非要把所有东西都在云端运行，因为如果能在本地运行，那就是免费的。”
Nadella seems to agree. “The amount of compute that there is at the edge is astounding,” he said during his Build keynote. “Every PC, if you sort of aggregate that, that’s a lot of compute power.” 纳德拉似乎也表示赞同。“边缘侧的计算量是惊人的，”他在 Build 主题演讲中说道。“每一台 PC，如果你把它们聚合起来，那将是巨大的计算能力。”
That power is really on display with Nvidia’s new RTX Spark chips, which will come to a variety of creator-focused laptops and miniature PCs later this year. RTX Spark is capable of running a 120 billion parameter large language model locally, allowing many AI workloads to run without ever touching the cloud. That’s an appealing concept during a continued AI money squeeze for developers and consumers. 这种能力在英伟达新款 RTX Spark 芯片上得到了充分展示，该芯片将于今年晚些时候应用于各种面向创作者的笔记本电脑和迷你 PC 中。RTX Spark 能够在本地运行一个 1.2 亿参数的大型语言模型，使得许多 AI 工作负载无需连接云端即可运行。对于开发者和消费者来说，在 AI 资金持续紧缩的背景下，这是一个极具吸引力的概念。
Microsoft is targeting its own Surface Laptop Ultra at developers and creators and pairing it with ongoing improvements to Windows 11 performance and developer-friendly additions. While Microsoft’s deeper embrace of Linux utilities inside Windows this week didn’t generate the same gleeful audience reaction as the Windows Terminal announcement in 2019, developers I’ve spoken to are excited by the Coreutils and WSL containers additions. 微软将自家的 Surface Laptop Ultra 定位为面向开发者和创作者的产品，并辅以 Windows 11 性能的持续改进和对开发者友好的功能增强。虽然微软本周在 Windows 中更深入地拥抱 Linux 工具并没有像 2019 年宣布 Windows Terminal 时那样引起观众的欢呼，但我交谈过的开发者们对 Coreutils 和 WSL 容器的加入感到非常兴奋。
The Surface Laptop Ultra has also been generating some buzz, particularly among developers and power users. Microsoft isn’t quite positioning this as a mainstream premium laptop, but there’s certainly room for it to appeal far beyond developers. “I think you’ll see us do well when it comes to STEM applications, and CAD apps running on the platform, because they take advantage of the same characteristic patterns of high-performance compute,” explains Davuluri. Surface Laptop Ultra 也引起了一些轰动，特别是在开发者和高级用户群体中。微软并没有将其完全定位为一款主流高端笔记本电脑，但它显然有潜力吸引远超开发者之外的用户。“我认为在 STEM 应用和在该平台上运行的 CAD 应用方面，你会看到我们表现出色，因为它们利用了高性能计算的相同特征模式，”达武鲁里解释道。
All of this renewed focus on Windows at Microsoft seemed impossible only six months ago. Davuluri responded to the pressure on Microsoft to improve Windows 11 by laying out a plan to focus on performance, reliability, and overall experiences in the OS just a couple of months ago. I got to see some of the performance improvements at Build this week, with side-by-side comparisons of the Start menu and taskbar loading faster. Microsoft is putting in a lot of effort to turn Windows 11 around and listen to feedback from a variety of users. 所有这些微软对 Windows 的重新关注，在仅仅六个月前似乎还是不可能的。就在几个月前，达武鲁里针对微软改进 Windows 11 的压力，制定了一项专注于操作系统性能、可靠性和整体体验的计划。本周在 Build 大会上，我亲眼目睹了一些性能改进，通过对比演示，开始菜单和任务栏的加载速度确实更快了。微软正在投入大量精力来扭转 Windows 11 的局面，并倾听来自不同用户的反馈。
But I’ve been wondering why Microsoft doesn’t just jump to Windows 12. It seems easier to just admit defeat on Windows 11 and then position Windows 12 as the remedy. Microsoft has done this many times in the past, particularly with the releases of Windows 7 and Windows 10. 但我一直想知道，为什么微软不直接跳到 Windows 12。承认 Windows 11 的失败，然后将 Windows 12 定位为补救措施似乎更容易。微软过去曾多次这样做，特别是在 Windows 7 和 Windows 10 的发布时。
“There are a lot of considerations when you think about the versioning of an operating system itself, and I think for us, a lot of the core proposition with Windows 11, or quite frankly, with Windows 12, or any label we use, has to do with end users and how they use the product and the workflow that they’re in,” says Davuluri. “I think we are more focused on having the product experience be better in the context they’re using it, and that I think is the most important thing for us.” “当你考虑操作系统本身的版本划分时，有很多考量因素。我认为对我们来说，Windows 11，或者坦率地说，Windows 12，或者我们使用的任何标签，其核心主张都与最终用户、他们如何使用产品以及他们所处的工作流程有关，”达武鲁里说。“我认为我们更专注于在用户的使用场景中提升产品体验，我认为这才是对我们来说最重要的事情。”
While we might not be getting a Windows 12 anytime soon, I’m curious how this Windows exists in a world of AI agents. Microsoft has been clear that it sees Windows as a home for AI agents and workloads, but it also unveiled Project Solara this week, a new platform for agent-first devices. Microsoft demonstrated a smart employee key card that could run an agent capable of transcribing and recognizing real world objects, and it also showed a reference design for an Amazon Echo Show–like device with an AI agent. It’s clear that Microsoft wants to… 虽然我们可能不会很快看到 Windows 12，但我很好奇这个 Windows 将如何在 AI 智能体的世界中存在。微软已经明确表示，它将 Windows 视为 AI 智能体和工作负载的家园，但它本周还发布了 Project Solara，这是一个面向“智能体优先”设备的新平台。微软演示了一张智能员工门禁卡，它可以运行一个能够转录和识别现实世界物体的智能体，还展示了一种带有 AI 智能体的类似 Amazon Echo Show 设备的参考设计。很明显，微软想要……