← Edge AI & Private Inference

Hybrid Cloud-Edge Architectures

Routing between edge and cloud based on query complexity, the PII gateway pattern, sync strategies for keeping edge and cloud indexes consistent, and failover design.

The pragmatic middle ground

Pure edge and pure cloud are both valid architectures. But for most enterprises, the right answer is somewhere in between.

The hybrid pattern recognises a practical reality: edge models (2-27B parameters) handle 70-85% of enterprise queries at adequate quality. The remaining 15-30% -- queries requiring complex multi-step reasoning, very long context windows, or frontier-level capability -- benefit from a larger cloud model.

The question is not edge vs cloud. The question is: how do you route each query to the right target while maintaining your privacy requirements?

Three hybrid patterns dominate enterprise deployments:

  1. Complexity-based routing: Simple queries go to edge, complex queries go to cloud
  2. PII gateway: Edge model strips sensitive data before sending to cloud
  3. Escalation with sanitisation: Edge handles everything, but can escalate anonymised queries to cloud for better answers

Each pattern has different privacy, cost, and quality characteristics. The right choice depends on your regulatory constraints and quality requirements.

?

Your organisation can tolerate sending anonymised queries to a cloud API, but customer PII must never leave your infrastructure. Which hybrid pattern fits?