The next big IT purchase for SMEs? A mini data center

The next big IT purchase for SMEs? A mini data center…

That’s the topic of a fascinating conversation I had with Guillaume Cisco, agentic engineer.

We are reaching a tipping point

Local models are becoming genuinely relevant.

At the same time, more and more companies are asking themselves about the sovereignty of their data.

The problem: our AI tools are American

We all know it: almost all of our AI tools are American. And under the CLOUD Act, even data hosted in Europe can be claimed by US authorities.

That’s exactly the same mechanism as when a database runs with a US-based host while physically sitting in Europe: I cover it in Multi-tenancy: the four levels of data isolation.

The idea: a machine on your own premises

A big machine installed on the company’s premises, running an open-source model locally. Employees access it remotely to do their work, and the data never leaves the company.

Deep down, the same use case as a Claude or a ChatGPT. Except the machine doing the work is at your place, not in the US.

Guillaume has already built this kind of setup for his personal use, and can deploy it inside a company.

It’s one more sign of a trend I see taking shape among SMEs: they are starting to invest directly in their own tech, rather than renting everything from outside. Bringing in a real senior for their own code is part of the same move. I write about it in The developer market is shifting.