A relative of ours is getting a completely souped up Alienware laptop via my inlaws. The thing is a beast of a configuration and cost 2k – Intel Ultra 9, 64gb ram, Nvidia 570 with has its own massive RAM, 2TB, 240Hz 16″ screen – you name it its the top of the end. He is in first semester of engineering and wants it to both play games and as he said, “host local ML models so I don’t have to worry about internet access”. At first I was like wow, look at that, even college freshmen are now like I want to host ML models and all. Then I was like, this is how WE were too when we were freshmen. We wanted to buy PCs that were powerful enough to play games…. and be able to compile Java/C++ code without taking an inordinate amount of time. Be able to host a local ML model is literally “I want to install Java/C++ and compile code” of our times.