Uptime Industries wants to boost localized AI usage with an ‘AI-in-a-box’ called Lemony AI

Uptime Industries has developed Lemony AI, a compact “AI-in-a-box” device designed to run large language models (LLMs), AI agents, and workflows locally on-premise. About the size of a sandwich and consuming only 65 watts of power, each Lemony node can support LLMs with up to 75 billion parameters, hosting both open-source and adapted closed models. Multiple devices can be stacked to form clusters, allowing different models to run simultaneously. The company has partnered with IBM and JetBrains to facilitate customer access to various AI models, including IBM’s proprietary ones. The concept originated from a side project by Uptime’s co-founders, who explored distributing language models on small devices like Raspberry Pis. Recognizing the potential for localized AI to enhance adoption—especially among enterprises wary of cloud-based solutions—they focused on creating a small, privacy-centric device that teams could deploy without extensive organizational approval. This approach appeals particularly to regulated sectors such as finance, healthcare, and law, where data privacy is critical since all data and models remain within the device. Uptime has raised $2 million in seed funding to advance development, plans to extend its Lemony OS software to other hardware platforms, and aims to evolve from single-user to team-based software functionality. Lemony AI is offered at $499 per month for up to five users.