Microsoft Build 2026: 7 biggest announcements

Microsoft has just opened Build 2026 with a keynote by CEO Satya Nadella and other company leaders. As expected, it was full of announcements ranging from new surface hardware to a constantly active personal assistant to updates for Microsoft's own AI models. Microsoft Build 2026: The 7 biggest announcements

The keynote to the build 2026 turned almost exclusively around AI. The keynote to the build 2026 turned almost exclusively around AI. If you have not followed the event live, you can find out the latest news in the summary below. The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is designed for developers who want to run local AI models on their device and serves as a substitute for Qualcomm's set development kit. It is with Nvidias new arm-based Spark RTX chip and 128 GB uniform memory as well as pre-installed apps such as Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot equipped. The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box also has a preconfigured version of Windows 11 Pro with a standardized dark mode, a simplified taskbar and no widgets. Microsoft has not announced any prices or complete list of technical data yet, but the device will be available in the USA this year. Microsoft takes steps to make Windows more developer-friendly. This includes the addition of Coreutils, which the company isLinux-similar command line utilities that are executed natively” under Windows 11. In addition, the company introduces its Windows subsystem for Linux (WSL) to create, execute and interact with Linux containers, along with a new intelligent terminal that provides context for a developer's preferred AI-based agent. We took a look at Project Solara, a Android-based operating system developed for performing agents on a variety of devices. Microsoft worked with Qualcomm and MediaTek to develop the system that could eventually function as a PC companion or transfer tasks between devices. During the keynote, Microsoft introduced some sample devices that could run the technology: a desktop hub and a digital ID. Microsoft brings a constantly active assistant to the market based on OpenClaw, the open source AI platform that won popularity at the beginning of the year. The wizard called Scout works with Microsoft 365 apps, including Outlook, OneDrive and Microsoft teams. It has been designed to perform tasks in the background and help companies organize calendars, manage bills, write emails and much more. Scout is part of a wider group of autopilot agents that Microsoft wants to market and of which everyone will have their own “identity”. Currently Scout starts as a desktop preview for frontier customers in the USA, however, Microsoft plans to provide it sometime more people. Microsoft pushes its work to create its own AI models instead of relying on the OpenAI to leave created models. During the build process, seven new models were introduced, including one that is supposed to be the first argumentation model. MAI-Thinking-1 offers 35 billion active parameters and a 128K context window, designed according to Microsoft for “complex multi-stage instructions, long context foundations and code generation”. In addition, updates have been announced for all models that focus on image, language and code generation as well as transcription. Speaking of OpenClaw: Microsoft tries to make the execution of AI agencies safer via something called Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC). This allows developers to set guidelines for what AI agents can access on their devices. Microsoft also launches an OpenClaw accompanying app that allows you to set up your own agent or connect to existing agents running in a sandbox environment. Microsoft introduced its next-generation quantum computer chip called Majorana 2, which, according to the company, could accelerate its progress in this field. The improved chip contains qubits – the information units in quantum computing – which are 1000 times more accurate. Microsoft returns the performance increase to a new material stack that uses lead and other compounds. In view of progress, Microsoft could achieve its goal of developing a practical quantum computer by 2029. Most popular

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