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Octopus Research Institute
Research notePeer review: Not peer reviewedStatus: Preprint

On the Practical Limits of Local Inference: A Research Note

Octopus Research Institute

This is a preprint. It has not been peer reviewed and may change.

Abstract

A short, non-peer-reviewed note summarising internal observations on when local, on-device inference is already sufficient for representative tasks, and where hosted inference remains necessary. Numbers are hardware-specific and are not a universal ranking.

Keywords

  • local inference
  • edge
  • model optimisation
  • portability

Authors

  • Octopus Research Institute — Investigation, Writing

Cite this

Citation

Octopus Research Institute. (2026). On the Practical Limits of Local Inference: A Research Note (v0.2). Octopus Research Institute.

BibTeX

@misc{ori2026localinference,
  title  = {On the Practical Limits of Local Inference: A Research Note},
  author = {{Octopus Research Institute}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {Version 0.2. Preprint; not peer reviewed.}
}

Disclosures

Funding
Hardware and infrastructure provided by Octopus Core Pty Ltd.
Conflicts of interest
Octopus Core offers commercial local-deployment products; this note is independent of that interest.

Version history

  • v0.2 · 2026-05-28

    Clarified hardware scope.

  • v0.1 · 2026-05-20

    First draft.