Practice · 2023–now · AI Present
Local inference
Run the model on your laptop or rack. Privacy, cost control, and the refusal to send every token to a vendor.
Why Local inference stuck
Local inference stuck for privacy-sensitive and offline workflows as open weights and IDE-local models matured. It failed as a default for teams that needed frontier quality without GPU ops. The fad was "replace the API tomorrow"; the stuck practice is hybrid — local for routine, cloud for peak.
Case studies

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