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RAPTOR — Rapid Analysis Platform and Tactical Operations Rig
Air-gapped AI

Air-gapped AI: run large language models with no network at all

RAPTOR puts the models, the interface and the data on one sealed unit. It behaves the same on a desk, in a vehicle, and in a facility that has never been connected to anything.

Product render: two RAPTOR compute nodes side by side, rear panels facing, joined by a single direct-attach cable between their network ports
Every model is on the device, so a unit can be imaged, sealed and deployed into a facility that has never been connected.

What is air-gapped AI?

Air-gapped AI
Air-gapped AI is artificial intelligence that runs on hardware with no connection to the internet or to any untrusted network. The model weights are stored locally, inference happens locally, and prompts, documents, imagery and results never cross the boundary. Nothing is sent to a vendor for processing, and nothing has to be fetched to keep the system working.

Isolation decides where the data can go. For who owns the weights, the hardware and the decisions, see sovereign AI.

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Why it matters

Why teams air-gap their AI

Most AI products depend on a connection to someone else’s data centre, which fails wherever connectivity is denied, degraded, forbidden by policy or simply not there. An air gap is the strongest control because it is physical: data has no route out, and an attacker has no route in. RAPTOR is built to be useful once the network has gone.

Policy forbids the alternative

Classified, regulated and export-controlled material often cannot be sent to a third-party service at all. With an air gap, the hardware enforces that rather than a contract.

The network is not there

Expeditionary, maritime, underground and disaster-response work often has no usable bandwidth. A platform that runs offline performs the same whatever the link is doing.

Latency is part of the job

When analysis feeds a decision within seconds, a satellite round trip is too slow. Inference next to the sensor is faster and more predictable than inference on another continent.

No exposure by accident

With no outbound connections there is no telemetry, no crash report carrying your data, no training opt-out to manage, and no change to a provider’s terms that affects your data.

Comparison

Cloud AI service versus air-gapped RAPTOR

Cloud AI service versus air-gapped RAPTOR
QuestionCloud AI serviceRAPTOR
ConnectivityCloud AI service:Required for every requestRAPTOR:Never required
Where data is processedCloud AI service:Vendor infrastructureRAPTOR:The unit in front of you
Data leaving your controlCloud AI service:Yes, by designRAPTOR:No route out
Behaviour when the link dropsCloud AI service:UnavailableRAPTOR:Unchanged
Cost modelCloud AI service:Metered per tokenRAPTOR:Not metered
PerformanceCloud AI service:Shared and variableRAPTOR:Dedicated hardware
Who decides when the model changesCloud AI service:The vendorRAPTOR:You
FAQ

Air-gapped AI: common questions

It means there is no network path at all between the system and the internet or any untrusted network. A firewall rule does not count. Data moves in and out only through a controlled process such as approved removable media, and all processing happens on hardware you hold.

Yes. An open-weight model is a file. Once the weights are on local storage and a serving runtime is installed, inference is pure local computation on the GPU. The internet is only ever needed to obtain the weights in the first place, which happens before the unit ships.

No. An air gap removes remote network attacks, but it does nothing about the files people carry across it or who can physically reach the unit. RAPTOR adds pre-ingest scanning of untrusted media and encryption at rest.

Tell us what you need to process

We size and quote a configuration to your workload and, where your security posture allows, set up an evaluation on your own material.

sales@raptorai.ukWhat sovereign AI requires