Trusted AI Infrastructure · Advisory Through Implementation
Solas helps regulated and security-conscious organizations design, deploy, and govern private, local, and hybrid AI — keeping knowledge, models, and decisions inside walls you control. Advisory through implementation.
Why Now
Twenty years ago, organizations modernized servers, networks, and cloud infrastructure. Today they are modernizing intelligence itself. That transition creates new requirements — and new exposure for anyone who navigates it without control. Solas exists to help organizations make that transition deliberately.
How I Can Help
Hire Solas for advisory, governance, and delivery of trusted AI infrastructure. Engage at any stage — from a first assessment to fractional, ongoing leadership.
01 / Assessment
Understand where AI can create real value — and where it can't yet — before you commit budget.
02 / Strategy
Build a practical, sequenced AI roadmap tied to business outcomes, not vendor hype.
03 / Architecture
Design private, local, and hybrid AI environments built for control from day one.
04 / Modernization
Bring legacy infrastructure into an AI-ready state without a rip-and-replace program.
05 / Governance
Put policy, audit, and accountability structures in place before regulators or incidents force it.
06 / Workshops
Give leadership teams a shared, accurate understanding of what AI can and can't do for them.
07 / Delivery
Lead delivery end-to-end, bridging strategy and execution so programs actually ship.
08 / Assessment
Draw the line deliberately between what stays local and what can safely use the cloud.
09 / Ongoing
Ongoing, senior-level AI strategy support — without a full-time executive hire.
Platform
Everything above is available today as advisory and delivery work. The long-term goal is a productized version of it — a single, secure platform organizations can deploy on their own infrastructure and operate without depending on us, or anyone else, indefinitely.
It's in active development, not yet for sale. If you'd like to help shape it — as a design partner, pilot customer, or technical collaborator — that conversation starts in Contact.
Why Sovereignty Matters
Organizations increasingly depend on cloud services, external platforms, and opaque AI systems. Digital sovereignty is the ability to retain meaningful control over your knowledge, intelligence, data, and AI.
Industries
Every sector below has the same underlying problem: sensitive data, a compliance boundary, and a growing need for AI. Solas designs around the boundary instead of asking you to compromise it.
Industry
Patient data can't leave a compliance boundary, but clinical teams still need fast answers from records, research, and imaging. Local AI keeps PHI in-building while giving staff the tools they're used to elsewhere.
Industry
Model risk, audit requirements, and client confidentiality rule out a shared cloud model. Private, governed AI moves fraud detection, research, and client service forward without creating new compliance exposure.
Industry
Public-sector data carries its own classification and residency rules. On-premises and air-gapped AI modernizes services and casework without routing citizen data through commercial cloud providers.
Industry
Process data, designs, and supply-chain intelligence are competitive assets. Local AI supports predictive maintenance, quality inspection, and knowledge capture without exposing IP to third parties.
Industry
Energy, water, and transport operators can't depend on external connectivity for systems that must keep running. Air-gapped and hybrid AI brings decision support to environments that have to stay resilient and auditable.
Industry
Technical documentation, standards, and design history are an engineering organization's institutional memory. Private knowledge systems make that memory searchable without handing it to a vendor's training pipeline.
Research & Insights
Solas doesn't operate in isolation from the research it's built on — but it's important to be precise about the relationship.
GLAF is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit researching AI infrastructure, governance, sustainability, privacy, and digital sovereignty. Solas is a separate, for-profit company that commercializes practical enterprise technology inspired by that research. The two are related by mission — not by ownership, funding, or editorial control.
Visit globallocal.ai →Platform R&D — Solas
Platform · In Development
Tracking data centers, compute, power, and the physical footprint of AI infrastructure.
Platform · In Development
Persistent intelligence built continuously from news, research, and reports.
Platform · In Development
Environmental and sustainability monitoring systems with traceable, auditable metrics.
Why Solas
No products to push, no lock-in to defend. The way we work is the proof — engagements are confidential, and references are available on request.
Independent
We recommend what fits your goals and constraints — open models, your hardware, the right architecture — not a product we're paid to resell.
Private by default
Control isn't a feature we bolt on later. Every system is designed so your data, models, and decisions stay inside your walls from the start.
Built to hand over
We transfer working systems and the knowledge to run them. Success is your people operating confidently — with us on call, not in the way.
Founder
Ciarán O'Hara is an enterprise AI infrastructure strategist and technology transformation leader, focused on trusted AI, digital sovereignty, and infrastructure modernization for regulated organizations.
Over 20+ years, his work has spanned enterprise architecture, cloud transformation, and governance-led infrastructure programs — including consulting engagements supporting organizations such as Apple, Meta, Pearson, and Marvell. He founded the Global Local AI Foundation to advance independent research into local, sovereign, and sustainable AI.
Join the Mission
Solas is a consulting practice today and an infrastructure company in progress. If you want to help build the platform — not just use it — that's a different conversation than a client engagement, and I'd like to have it.
How We Work
Understand your goals, data, constraints, and where AI creates real value.
Architect the right systems — sovereign AI, knowledge, or intelligence — for your environment.
Build, install, and integrate, with security and governance considered from the start.
Hand over systems your team can operate, with support as your needs grow.
Thinking
Writing in progress on the architecture, governance, and infrastructure questions regulated organizations are actually asking. Publishing here as it's ready — no filler in the meantime.
Thinking · Coming Soon
Concrete patterns for private inference, RAG, and hybrid deployment — the designs behind the advisory work.
Thinking · Coming Soon
Where compute, data, and governance meet inside a real enterprise environment.
Thinking · Coming Soon
Practical frameworks for auditability, policy, and accountability — not just the regulations themselves.
Thinking · Coming Soon
What actually works running models on your own hardware, and where cloud still makes sense.
Thinking · Coming Soon
What control over data, models, and infrastructure means in practice, not just in principle.
Thinking · Coming Soon
A sector-specific read on where regulated industries are placing their AI bets, and why.
Reference Library
A short list of external sources we trust on AI risk, governance, and infrastructure. For deeper research, see the Global Local AI Foundation above.
Framework
The US risk-management framework most enterprise AI governance programs are built on.
nist.gov →Standard
The international standard for AI management systems — the ISO 27001 of AI governance.
iso.org →Research
Human-Centered AI Institute — policy and research on AI's societal and enterprise impact.
hai.stanford.edu →Research
UK national institute for data science and AI, with strong public-sector governance work.
turing.ac.uk →Security
The standard reference for security risks specific to LLM applications.
owasp.org →Security
US federal guidance on securing AI systems across critical infrastructure sectors.
cisa.gov →Research
Research on the social and economic implications of AI concentration and governance.
ainowinstitute.org →Analysis
Independent, technically literate coverage of where AI infrastructure is actually heading.
technologyreview.com →Tooling
The open-model ecosystem most local and hybrid deployments are built on.
huggingface.co →Frequently Asked
Sovereign AI means running AI on infrastructure you control — your hardware, your data, your governance — rather than depending on external cloud providers. It keeps knowledge, models, and decisions aligned with your organization's goals and obligations.
Local AI keeps sensitive data inside your walls, removes per-use cloud costs, and gives you continuity that doesn't depend on a vendor's pricing or policy changes. Modern open models make this practical today.
Often a single well-specified machine is enough to start — from a compact workstation for a small team to a dedicated server for larger deployments. We right-size hardware to your workload during design.
Yes. Many organizations adopt a hybrid approach — sensitive workloads stay local and sovereign, while non-sensitive tasks use cloud where it makes sense. We help you draw that line deliberately.
Healthcare, financial services, government, manufacturing, critical infrastructure, and engineering — anywhere a compliance boundary meets a genuine need for AI. See Industries for specifics.
An assessment can take a few weeks; a first sovereign system can be running shortly after. Larger programs run longer. We scope every engagement to your goals and constraints.
Yes. Solas is a working consulting practice today and an infrastructure company in progress — the Sovereign AI Appliance. If you want to help build it rather than hire it, see Join the Mission.
Whether you're exploring AI strategy, governance, private systems, or a technical partnership, Solas can help design an approach aligned with your goals, constraints, and values.
A 30-minute call to understand your goals and whether Solas is the right fit. No sales deck, no obligation.
Private by default · Engagements confidential · References available on request.
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Tell us your name, organization, and what you need — readiness assessment, strategy, architecture, governance, or a co-founder conversation.