KVP Forge - Why local, why now
The gap is closing. Your hardware is catching up.
Three years ago, local models were a science project. Today a single workstation runs models that do real professional work - and the cost math keeps getting better. Here's the honest picture, including when the cloud is still the right answer.
~0.0 years
to break even for a team on heavy cloud plans - after which it's roughly $50/mo, forever
Illustrative scenario - your real number comes from the assessment
$0/mo
is what running the box costs - electricity. Every query after that is free
Engineering estimate for a 2-GPU node, ~8h/day
$0/user
per user, per month, per query - the subscription math ends when you own the machine
No seats. No per-token meters. No price hikes.
The gap is closing
Three years of public model releases, in plain English. Qualitative on purpose - the trend is the point, not a score.
Science project
Local models were demos
Running AI on your own hardware was a hobby. The models that fit on a consumer card could chat, but couldn't really work.
Genuinely useful
The 'wait, it can do that?' moment
8B-class models started handling drafting, summarization, and simple analysis well enough that people stopped treating local as a toy.
Closing fast
32B-class arrives on one node
Models that fit on one or two cards approached last year's frontier for everyday professional work. The gap stopped being theoretical.
Real work
Your desk, your model
A single workstation handles document analysis, code review, and team workflows. And every release keeps shrinking what the cloud does better.
What 24-32GB of VRAM actually runs
A modern consumer or workstation GPU - the kind we source at retail. No exotic hardware required.
Documents & records
Contracts, reports, case files, ledgers - summarized, analyzed, and drafted against, on the machine where they live.
A business chat assistant
A local assistant that knows your files. No per-seat subscription, no prompts leaving the building.
Coding assistance
Completion, review, and refactoring help running on the same network as the code - nothing pasted to a third party.
Team workflows
Drafting, intake, research, follow-ups - multi-user on a Team build, tuned to how your work actually runs.
The break-even, honestly
Five years, one 5-person team, public list prices. The lines that matter: how you actually use it.
Illustrative: 5-person team, public cloud team-plan list prices, KVP Forge Team box at published pricing (~$35k all-in), ~$50/mo power. Your real break-even is estimated from your actual usage in the assessment - and if that math says cloud, we'll say so. Not financial advice.
Does the math work for you?
That's literally what the assessment answers: your workloads, your data, your budget - and an honest local / cloud / hybrid call.