Final answer:
The Touchpad is the laptop component that serves as a pointing device, used to control the cursor and interact with the laptop's user interface.
Step-by-step explanation:
The component of a laptop that functions as a pointing device is the Touchpad. The Touchpad is used to control the cursor on the screen and it allows users to interact with the laptop's user interface by tapping, swiping, and clicking. The other options listed: CPU (Central Processing Unit), GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), and RAM (Random Access Memory) serve different functions. The CPU processes instructions from programs, the GPU handles rendering images, videos, and animations, and the RAM stores data temporarily for quick access by the CPU.