Trying ChatGPT and other cloud-based AI services is great but the next level is to learn how to do it locally. The main problem for most folks is not having the right hardware. The good news is there are a bunch of models you can run on a desktop graphics card. Larger models can be tried on a Mac. More advanced users can rely on multiple GPU servers for more serious models.
For the first level, you are simply going to need a modern CPU, lots of RAM and a fast NVME SSD. For the next level, you can use a a big unified memory to run larger models with Ollama. Most serious AI enthusiasts will probably go with a high end GPU with 24GB VRAM plus up to 128GB RAM to run offline models.
