Microsoft has nearly recovered all of its year-to-date stock market losses as of writing, as shares rally on Azure growth, homegrown AI, and the latest news coming out of Computex.

In case you've been sleeping under a rock (or a pile of silicon), NVIDIA and Microsoft announced a renewed push into an Arm-based Windows future over the past weekend.

Qualcomm's exclusivity deal for Snapdragon Arm chips has finally expired, and NVIDIA has immediately stepped in with its much-hyped N1X chipset, boasting RTX graphics and full-blown compatibility with "all" Windows apps, says NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. They also showcased Forza Horizon 6 and 007 First Light running incredibly well on this chip, and we even have a new Surface Laptop Ultra coming later in the year to showcase it in full.

The news led to another solid uptick for Microsoft's stock price, which has taken a battering over the past year over its AI infrastructure spending. Investors had been worried that Microsoft is over-extending itself on capital expenditure, given that AI has yet to show a path towards real profitability.

Over the past few months, Microsoft has been focusing its AI efforts around the enterprise more and more — where the real money is — while taking a more measured posture with consumers. Microsoft has also been working to untangle itself from OpenAI and work more closely with Anthropic and other AI vendors, as well as building out its home-grown efficiency-focused Phi models.

So far, investors seem generally upbeat about the way Microsoft has been handling things more recently. A few weeks of rallies have seen Microsoft claw back much of the losses it endured over the past year, buttressed by a pretty loud pitch to improve quality for consumers across Xbox and Windows both. Microsoft's Windows K2 effort and its work to bridge its Xbox console and PC gaming ecosystems should also serve to breathe new life into the Windows ecosystem in the coming years.

The news out of Computex with NVIDIA N1X also led to an additional 3% upswing, while competing chip makers AMD and Intel shares sank slightly on the news. Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and other analysts have been more upbeat on Microsoft lately, citing Copilot adoption and its boosted position on AI-oriented PC hardware. It's not all good news, though.

The AI infrastructure build-out has led to a monstrous explosion in memory prices, which has harmed consumer confidence and priced many more out of various markets for new tech spend. There's not a huge amount of information about how much N1X-based laptops could end up costing, but you probably shouldn't be surprised if the Surface Laptop Ultra ends up costing $2,999.99 or more.

There's still a big question mark hanging over the AI build-out in general. The vast amount of hype, claims of mass job losses, and circular investments have seen Microsoft and many of its Big AI cohorts be accused of operating in a gigantic fiscal bubble primed to implode. Perhaps this $MSFT rally will be short-lived if that's all true.

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Jez Corden is the Executive Editor at Windows Central, focusing primarily on all things Xbox and gaming. Jez is known for breaking exclusive news and analysis as relates to the Microsoft ecosystem — while being powered by tea. Follow on X.com/JezCorden and tune in to the XB2 Podcast, all about, you guessed it, Xbox!