With private company defaults running at upwards of 9.2% — the highest rate in years — VC firm Lux Capital recently advised companies relying on AI to get their compute capacity commitments confirmed in writing. With financial instability rippling through the AI supply chain, Lux warned, a handshake agreement isn’t enough.
But there’s another option entirely, which is to stop relying on external compute infrastructure altogether. Smaller AI models that run directly on a user’s own device — no data center, no cloud provider, no counterparty risk — are getting good enough to be worth considering. And Multiverse Computing is raising its hand.