A plain account of what ships in the box, how the appliance activates, how the dashboard works, and what's on the roadmap. Aimed at the buyer in research mode — there is no jargon below that is necessary for the buying decision.
Each Arsenale unit is a purpose-built compute appliance with unified-memory architecture, pre-installed with Syntex OS, a frontier-class 120B-parameter mixture-of-experts model, the agent runtime, and the operations dashboard. There is no separate software install step on the customer's side, no model download, and no third-party AI subscription required for the system to function.
A compact, fanless-capable compute unit sized for a desk or rack shelf. Ships with power supply, ethernet cable, and a printed welcome card carrying the licence key and dashboard URL.
Syntex OS — a hardened Linux base with the inference runtime, kernel-level unified-memory optimisations, and the appliance management daemon. Updated via a signed package channel.
A 120B-parameter mixture-of-experts model running locally at ~18 tokens per second on the appliance. Weights are stored on the device; inference does not require outbound connectivity.
The execution layer for autonomous agents — task scheduling, persistent memory, cross-agent shared intelligence, outcome tracking, and the management dashboard customers interact with.
Four steps from unboxing to a working dashboard. None of them require a terminal or technical skill on the customer's side.
Connect power and ethernet. The appliance starts and begins initialising services. Typical time to ready state is under a minute.
Each appliance is assigned its own dashboard address, printed on the welcome card. Open it in any modern browser, from any device on the internet.
The key is on the welcome card. It activates the appliance offline against a local checksum — no phone-home, no remote authorisation in the path.
The dashboard loads. Agents are running. The model is loaded. You can start asking it questions, reviewing financial data, or onboarding integrations from this point on.
Most customers want the dashboard accessible from outside their network. We support four configurations across a spectrum from convenience to maximal sovereignty, summarised below. Customers can switch between them at any time without moving the data.
| Option | How it works | Best when |
|---|---|---|
| Managed tunnel default |
The appliance dials out to a managed reverse tunnel and surfaces the dashboard at a stable URL. Works on any network without firewall configuration. | Zero IT skill required. Customer wants the URL to just work. |
| VPN tunnel | Customer connects via a WireGuard or Tailscale client. The dashboard is reachable only over the VPN. Encryption is end-to-end between client and appliance. | Maximum sovereignty without giving up remote access. No third party in the network path. |
| LAN only | Remote access disabled. Dashboard reachable only from the same local network as the appliance. | Air-gapped or strictly-private deployment. |
| BYO domain | Customer points their own domain at the appliance and supplies their DNS credentials. The edge layer becomes theirs to choose or skip. | Enterprise deployment with existing brand domain and security posture. |
See Trust & Security → for the architectural specifics of each option.
The appliance receives Syntex OS updates over a cryptographically signed channel. Customer involvement is opening the System tab on the dashboard and clicking Apply. There is no terminal step.
Update packages are signed at source. The appliance verifies the signature before applying anything — tampered or unsigned packages are rejected without being installed.
Updates are surfaced as available on the dashboard. The customer chooses when to apply. There is no forced background install and no schedule pushed from us.
Air-gapped deployments can receive updates as signed offline packages delivered out of band. The same signature verification applies.
Every appliance ships with five years of security patches at no additional charge. Feature updates beyond that period are gated behind the optional annual licence.
The honest version. The platform layer is universal — same hardware, same operating system, same model on every unit. What's evolving is the layer above: vertical bundles and integrations for specific industries.
Items on the roadmap are funded by ongoing engineering and customer revenue. Customers on the annual licence receive roadmap items as they ship at no additional charge.
Once an order is placed, every email, invoice, shipping update, and support reply references the same order number. One reference, from reservation to delivery to support.
Customer reserves via /pricing and receives a confirmation email carrying a reference of the form ARN-YYYY-NNNN.
A member of the team confirms availability and ships an invoice within one business day, against the same order reference.
Hardware is prepared, the licence key is issued and bound to the appliance, software is verified, and the unit is packed for dispatch.
The appliance is dispatched with a tracking number. On arrival, the customer plugs in and follows the four-step first-boot above. Support continues against the same reference.
No. Inference, agent execution, and learning all run on the appliance. The managed-tunnel option uses outbound connectivity to make the dashboard reachable remotely, but that is optional — LAN-only and air-gapped deployments are supported. The licence activates offline.
Hardware is owned outright. Inference continues to work. The licence does not phone home; it validates against an offline checksum. Updates would stop arriving over the signed channel, but the appliance you have continues to function with the software it has.
The shipping configuration is the 120B mixture-of-experts model tuned for the agent workloads our customers run. Custom model deployment is not in the supported scope at launch and is on the roadmap as a future Pro-tier option.
Through customer-configured connectors. Today this includes file drops, IMAP email digests, and Companies House. The Layer 3 integrations roadmap covers verticalised connectors (accounting, CRM, sector-specific data sources) as they ship.
The form factor is desk-suitable but rack-shelf-compatible. For deployments needing a true 1U/2U server, contact us — the Workstation/Server tier roadmap is being scoped against real customer constraints.
Each appliance is independent by default — its own dashboard, its own licence, its own data. Multi-appliance fleet management (centralised policy, federated agent state) is on the roadmap; customers running fleets today should mention it when reserving so we can capture the use case.
For specific procurement questions, security questionnaires, or pre-purchase technical conversations, write to contact@arsenale.ai.