Per-Desk Sovereign AI — Total Cost of Ownership

Comparing the three realistic deployment options for AI on a UK public-sector knowledge worker's desk.

Government is leaving the incumbent stack for sovereignty. Government is adopting AI for productivity. Arsenale is the only product that does both, on UK soil, at desk-scale price.

Year-One Total Cost, Per Desk

Cost component	Cloud AI on existing PC	On-prem cluster + new PC	Arsenale per desk
Hardware	~£600 standard refresh	~£600 PC + cluster share	£2,499 owned outright
Software / integration Y1	£288–360 / yr per seat	£30,000–80,000 integration + ops	£1,200 / yr full stack
Sovereignty posture	Data leaves UK soil	Sovereign, complex	Desk-local by default
Asset ownership	Rented forever	Cluster shared	Owned outright
Vendor pricing risk	20–40% rises 2023–25	Cluster vendor lock	Fixed at purchase
Year 1 total per desk	£888–960	£30,600+	£3,699
5-year total per desk	£2,040–2,400 *	£30,000+ amortised	£8,499

5-Year Per-Desk Cost Visualisation

Cloud AI on existing PC

£2,400 *

Arsenale per desk

£8,499

On-prem cluster + new PC

£30,000+

* Cloud AI 5-year figure excludes sovereignty risk, the 20–40% vendor pricing increases of the past three years continuing forward, and the strategic cost of permanent renting. For workloads where citizen data cannot lawfully leave UK soil — benefits, tax, courts, NHS commissioning, safeguarding — this column is not a viable option. It is included for completeness only.

What the Premium Buys

Sovereignty

Citizen data physically cannot leave the desk. No cross-border transfers, no hyperscaler dependency, no jurisdictional exposure.

Ownership

Hardware bought outright at purchase. No perpetual licensing, no deprecation by vendor decision, no asset on someone else's balance sheet.

Fixed pricing

Cost locked at the day of purchase. No exposure to the 20–40% cloud price increases of 2023–25 continuing forward.

UK supply chain

UK-built, UK-shipped, UK-supported. UK Limited Company with sole accountability. No CFIUS or FOCI exposure.