The Access Problem
Running models locally is constrained by hardware access as much as by code. A person or small shop can download model weights and write software, but custom compute still depends on expensive fabrication, closed process knowledge, vendor-controlled IP, and hardware platforms that are difficult to inspect completely.
The practical access target is a stack where more of the compute path can be owned locally: board design, firmware, test, reusable open IP, and eventually active-device fabrication or active-material processes.
Soft IP And Hard IP
Soft IP can be inspected, synthesized, simulated, adapted, and moved across targets when the toolchain supports it. Hard IP is different. Blocks such as SERDES, PLLs, memory interfaces, and vendor-specific transceivers often carry the real system boundary because their behavior, layout, timing, and validation are not fully portable.
That boundary matters for open hardware. A design can have open HDL and still depend on closed hard blocks for the parts that make it usable at speed.
The Active-Device Layer
The maker layer is strong at PCBs, assembly, enclosures, firmware, fixtures, and test. It is weaker at locally reproducible active behavior: gain, switching, restoration, fanout, and repeatability.
This is why the hardware-access question connects to older switching devices, magnetic amplifiers, unconventional materials, and non-silicon experiments. The point is not to announce a replacement for CMOS. The point is to ask what useful active device class can be built, tested, and reproduced closer to the people using it.
What Has To Hold
For local compute to become more than a slogan, the path has to preserve real engineering constraints: process window, yield, timing, power, signal integrity, test coverage, and a way to compose many devices into a reliable system.
The right comparison is not only price against a cloud GPU. It is control over the compute path: what can be inspected, repaired, adapted, reproduced, and trusted without asking a remote stack for permission.