Setting up a new PC for coding usually takes hours: installing tools, configuring settings, getting everything to talk to each other. AMD and Microsoft want to cut that down.
AMD has announced that the new Ryzen AI Halo, powered by the Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 processor, now ships with Project Zenith pre-installed. It’s a version of Windows 11 that’s set up for developers right out of the box. The two companies first announced Project Zenith at IFA 2026, and it’s launching on Ryzen AI Halo first. Support for other Ryzen AI Max devices is coming soon.
What is Project Zenith?
Project Zenith is a Windows 11 setup with the tools developers commonly use already installed:
Visual Studio Code (pinned to the taskbar)Git, GitHub CLI and GitHub Copilot CLIAzure CLIPython, Node.js and .NETPowerShell 7Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
It also tweaks Windows settings for development work. You’re not locked into any particular workflow, though. You can still add, remove and customise tools as you like.
AMD’s local AI tools on top
AMD adds its own software for running AI models locally:
AMD Ryzen AI Developer Center: one place for developer resources, managing pre-installed software and keeping it in sync with AMD’s validated setupAMD AI Playbooks: step-by-step guides for things like running LLMs with PyTorch and ROCm, image generation with ComfyUI, local AI coding with VS Code and Qwen3-Coder, serving models through LM Studio, and workflow automation with n8n
AMD says new playbooks are added every month.
The hardware
The Ryzen AI Halo combines CPU, GPU and AI acceleration with:
Up to 192GB of unified memory, with up to 160GB available to graphics273GB/s memory bandwidthSupport for AI models of up to 300 billion parameters, running locally
Because it’s x86, it also runs all the Windows apps you already use.
Already have a Ryzen AI Halo?
If you already own a Ryzen AI Halo with Windows installed, you don’t need to wait. You can set up the same environment yourself using Microsoft’s Windows Developer Config on GitHub.
Availability
The Ryzen AI Halo with Project Zenith is available now from Micro Center, a US retailer. AMD hasn’t announced Malaysian availability or pricing yet. We’ll update when it does.
Source: AMD