Ghost emerged from stealth on October 5 with an $11 million seed round and one product: Core, a screenless computer that runs AI models locally. It costs $3,499 and ships October 31. No cloud subscription. No monthly bill.
What you can do with it now
Core could replace the tasks you send to ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro. Both cost $20 a month. Over three years that's $720. Core costs $3,499 upfront, so you'd break even after nearly five years — before electricity.
The math improves if you're paying API bills. A team that racks up $200 a month in usage charges would recover the purchase in 18 months. But that assumes Core can handle the full workload, which depends on the models you need and the precision you require.
Core runs on an Nvidia RTX Pro 4000 GPU with 24GB memory, 64GB of system RAM, and a 1TB drive. Ghost says it generates 87 tokens per second on a 27-billion-parameter model, though independent tests aren't public yet. You use it through an app on your phone or computer; the box itself has no screen.
What to keep in your own hands
Don't assume local means cheaper until you map your current spend. Write down what you pay now: subscriptions, API calls, the tasks you send out. Then estimate what percentage Core could actually handle without sending you back to the cloud for the hard requests. If it's under 70%, the payback period stretches past useful.
Keep control of the models you need. Core ships with open models, and you can load others from Hugging Face. But if your workflow depends on the newest closed models from OpenAI or Anthropic, Core won't run them. Check your list before you buy the box.