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Microsoft's official October 7 announcements confirm local MAI-Code-1.1-Flash for Windows PCs and GitHub Copilot on high-end hardware. Corrected Oct. 7: memory figure now matches Microsoft's Command Line post 'Bringing local models and sandboxed tools to Windows and GitHub Copilot' (peak 75.5 GB at 256K context, 53 GB quantized); the earlier 'more than 120 GB' recommendation came from Frandroid, not Microsoft. Corrected Oct. 7 (2): Claude Opus 5.5 (87.64%) and GPT-6 Astra (87.27%) Terminal-Bench 2.1 scores are from Vals AI's leaderboard (vals.ai/benchmarks/terminal-bench-2-1, updated 9/28/2026, Terminus 2 harness), not Microsoft; now attributed.

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Home/Tech/Microsoft preparing local MAI-Code-1.1-Flash for high-end PCs
VERIFIEDBy Xavier Rivera· ·1.5 min read

Microsoft preparing local MAI-Code-1.1-Flash for high-end PCs

Microsoft has introduced a local edition of MAI-Code-1.1-Flash that runs on Windows PCs without server access. The model requires substantial memory and is coming to GitHub Copilot in experimental preview by the end of October, starting with Nvidia RTX Spark PCs.

Source:Frandroid
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Microsoft preparing local MAI-Code-1.1-Flash for high-end PCs
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TL;DRAI · 60 sec read

Microsoft introduces a local MAI-Code-1.1-Flash coding model that runs on Windows PCs without servers. It comes to GitHub Copilot in experimental preview by the end of October, starting with Nvidia RTX Spark PCs, and incurs no token costs. Memory use peaks at 75.5 GB at full 256K context, so it effectively needs a 128 GB RTX Spark machine. It trails leading cloud models such as Claude Opus 5.5 on Vals AI's Terminal-Bench 2.1 leaderboard.

⚐ CORRECTED 

Wrong: Claude Opus 5.5's 87.6% and GPT-6 Astra's 87.3% Terminal-Bench 2.1 scores read as Microsoft's own figures. Right: those scores come from Vals AI's Terminal-Bench 2.1 leaderboard, which uses a different test setup; Microsoft reported only its own model's scores (62.9% cloud, 66.3% local).

EARLIER CORRECTIONS (2)
 

Wrong: said Microsoft recommends more than 120 GB of video memory to run the local MAI-Code-1.1-Flash. That figure came from Frandroid, not Microsoft. Right: Microsoft says the local model's memory use peaks at 75.5 GB at its full 256K context, so it effectively needs a 128 GB RTX Spark machine.

 

Wrong: said MAI-Code-1.1-Flash activates 5 billion parameters per step and was "confirmed in development" for GitHub Copilot, and gave only the cloud model's 62.9% Terminal-Bench 2.1 score. Right: Microsoft says the model has 137 billion total and 6.8 billion active parameters; the local version comes to GitHub Copilot in experimental preview by the end of October; on Terminal-Bench 2.1 the cloud model scored 62.9% and the local version 66.3%.

→ All corrections
Microsoft has introduced a local version of its MAI-Code-1.1-Flash AI coding model that runs directly on Windows PCs without using company servers.

The local model comes to GitHub Copilot by the end of October. Microsoft says the local edition arrives in experimental preview in GitHub Copilot, starting with PCs equipped with Nvidia RTX Spark chips. Computations occur on the device itself, so Microsoft states users will not be billed for tokens.
Microsoft says memory use peaks at 75.5 GB at the full 256K context, so it effectively needs a 128 GB RTX Spark machine.

Hardware demands restrict availability to high-end machines. The quantized local model takes up 53 GB, and Microsoft says its memory use peaks at 75.5 GB at the full 256K context, so it effectively needs a 128 GB RTX Spark machine, such as the Surface Laptop Ultra with 128 GB of unified memory.

Performance trails leading cloud models on Terminal-Bench. Microsoft reports a 62.9 percent success rate on Terminal-Bench 2.1 for the cloud model and 66.3 percent for the local version. On Vals AI's Terminal-Bench 2.1 leaderboard, which uses a different test setup, Claude Opus 5.5 scores 87.6 percent and GPT-6 Astra scores 87.3 percent. On SWE-Bench Verified the local version reaches 70.8 percent while the cloud version reaches 72.6 percent.
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Model uses mixture-of-experts architecture. MAI-Code-1.1-Flash contains 137 billion total parameters yet activates only 6.8 billion at each step. The model first appeared on August 11 and entered GitHub Copilot this summer at $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens.
Computations occur on the device itself, so Microsoft states users will not be billed for tokens.
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Local execution eliminates token costs. Microsoft positions the offline capability as an alternative to cloud services such as Claude Haiku 5.5 and GPT-6 Luna. The company continues broader work to enable large models to run locally on Windows.
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