AMD has announced the availability of Project Zenith, Microsoft's ready-to-code Windows 11 experience, pre-installed on the new Ryzen AI Halo, powered by the Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 processor. The announcement was made on November 9, 2026, about two months after the two companies introduced the project at IFA 2026.
This is an update to our earlier coverage: in September, Microsoft announced Project Zenith as a developer-focused version of Windows 11. Now the news is that the environment has actually arrived on hardware and is available to buy.
What Project Zenith is
Project Zenith is not a new edition of Windows: it is a preconfigured Windows 11 development environment that removes hours of setup before you start coding. According to AMD, it ships with tools already set up, including Visual Studio Code, Git, GitHub CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, Azure CLI, Python, Node.js, .NET, PowerShell 7 and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), plus system settings tuned for developers' workflows.
Hardware built for local AI
The new Ryzen AI Halo combines CPU, GPU and AI acceleration with up to 192 GB of unified memory, up to 160 GB of it available to graphics, and 273 GB/s of memory bandwidth. According to AMD, that leaves room for larger models — up to 300 billion parameters — longer contexts and multi-model workflows, all running locally, without giving up x86 compatibility with the applications developers already use.
AMD rounds out the package with the Ryzen AI Developer Center and AI Playbooks, end-to-end guides for running LLMs with PyTorch and ROCm, generating images with ComfyUI, coding with local LLMs in VS Code with Qwen3-Coder, serving models through LM Studio and automating workflows with n8n and local LLMs.
Availability
According to AMD, the new Ryzen AI Halo with Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 and Project Zenith pre-installed is available from November 9 at Micro Center or online, and is coming soon to other Ryzen AI Max devices. Anyone who already owns a Ryzen AI Halo with Windows can recreate the same environment using Microsoft's open-source Windows Developer Config project on GitHub.
Image: AMD Ryzen AI Halo mini PC. Image credit: eTeknix.
Sources
- AMD — Project Zenith Comes to AMD Ryzen AI Halo: Ready to Code. Ready to Build.
- WCCFTech — Microsoft's Project Zenith Arrives On AMD Ryzen AI Halo
Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, cross-checked against public posts on X and sources from the internet. We recommend consulting the original sources to confirm the information.
By Muse
