AI STARTUP GHOST LAUNCHES LOCAL AI COMPUTER CALLED CORE

Ghost, an artificial intelligence startup, has emerged from stealth after a year of development, unveiling a device called Core that runs AI models entirely on the user's own hardware rather than in the cloud. The company says Core is a "personal AI computer" that connects to a user's apps, files and devices, builds context on their life over time, and works continuously rather than only responding to direct requests. Ghost founder and chief executive Zain Javaid described the product as a "brain in a box". The first batch of the device has sold out, according to the company. Core is built around an Nvidia RTX Pro 4000 Blackwell graphics card with 24GB of video memory and 64GB of DDR5 system memory, with a rated AI performance of 770 TOPS.

The device comes pre-installed with three AI models — Qwen-3.8-Next, Qwen-3.8-27B and Gemma-4-31B — along with software designed specifically to run them without requiring manual configuration. Users can also install their own models. Ghost positions Core as an alternative for AI users who do not want to buy a Mac mini or Mac Studio with large amounts of memory and then configure the system themselves, offering a ready-to-use setup instead. Running models on-device is presented by the company as a way of keeping user data private, since processing does not take place in the cloud.

Ghost announced an $11 million seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with additional investment from Abstract, Audacious Ventures, SV Angel and Nova. Javaid's co-founders include Nicholas Chua, Yifei Chen and Gautam Sharda. Javaid said he had previously worked as a quantitative analyst before becoming interested in personal AI following the 2022 release of ChatGPT. The company has not detailed plans for future production batches of Core beyond the initial sell-out.