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Pre-release · 2027 pilots

Research

What we checked, and where it came from.

The field notes behind this site. Each one takes a question a buyer or an investor would ask, reads the primary source wherever it loads, dates every citation and writes down what it could not read.

Field notes

One question per note, answered with sources.

Each note lists its findings in the words this site uses, then the pages that rely on them. Where a note corrected our own earlier work, it says so.

  1. 01 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    Regulatory clocks

    Which dates bind software on a regulated EU site, checked against the primary text?

    Used on

    1. National Common Criteria schemes stopped producing effects on 27 Feb 2026. For an EU-wide CC certificate, EUCC is now the only route.

    2. CRA reporting of actively exploited vulnerabilities went live on 11 Sep 2026, with a 24-hour early warning, and covers products already on the market. The full CRA applies from 11 Dec 2027.

    3. The AI Omnibus is law: Annex III high-risk duties moved to 2 Dec 2027, and AI in regulated products such as machinery to 2 Aug 2028.

    4. 20,141 entities are registered with the BSI under Germany's NIS2 law; selected manufacturing is the largest Annex 2 sector, at 4,739.

    What it corrected
    Our source report dated EUCC to Feb 2027. National schemes in fact ceased in Feb 2026, so no page shows the 2027 date.
    Limits
    The EUR-Lex page for the AI Omnibus returned empty to our fetcher, so that finding cites a law-firm alert.
  2. 02 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    What a fab asks of a Linux box

    What do SEMI E187 and IEC 62443-4-2 ask of a server that sits in a fab?

    Used on

    1. SEMI E187 covers the Windows or Linux computers of fab equipment, not PLCs. The 2022 first edition is still current.

    2. TSMC made E187 a tool procurement specification in 2023, checked before any new equipment comes in.

    3. Taiwan's digital ministry, with SEMI, TSMC, ASE and TEEIA, announced an E187 certification programme for equipment suppliers.

    4. ISASecure recommends IEC 62443 Security Level 2 as the minimum for off-the-shelf components.

    Limits
    The SEMI and IEC standards are paid documents, so we read the store listings, not the clause text. Whether the Taiwanese scheme accepts foreign suppliers is not stated.
  3. 03 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    OT edge platforms and IEC 62443

    Do the OT edge vendors already close the security gap for AI on the plant network?

    Used on

    1. TTTech's Nerve platform holds an IEC 62443-4-2 product certificate from TÜV Austria, issued Dec 2025.

    2. Moxa's UC Series industrial computers were certified at SL2 by DEKRA on 29 Jul 2026.

    3. In what we found, none of them signs large open-weight models, carries them across the gap with provenance checks, or publishes an evidence pack for a GPU server.

      Our reading
    What it corrected
    Our source report said no platform it found mentions IEC 62443. That held for AI platforms, not for OT edge vendors, so the fab page now places the appliance next to them.
    Limits
    Rockwell's site refused our fetcher, so its facts come from syndicated copies of its own releases. Not found means not found in our searches.
  4. 04 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    Energy and nuclear

    Are plants already running language models on site, and what stands in the way?

    Used on

    1. Diablo Canyon runs Atomic Canyon's document search on NVIDIA H100s installed at the plant, the first on-site generative AI at a US nuclear plant.

    2. EDF signed a five-year deal with Mistral for AI over its fleet's technical memory, hosted on sovereign cloud or EDF's own data centres, and not for plant control systems.

    3. The NRC put out a contract to map AI cyber risks against Regulatory Guide 5.71, saying AI may need new cyber guidance.

    4. The Llama 4 Acceptable Use Policy lists “nuclear industries or applications” among its prohibited uses.

    Limits
    nrc.gov refused our fetcher, so RG 5.71 level details come from search excerpts of the NRC's 2026 technical letter report, and the page numbers only the levels we could confirm.
  5. 05 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    Defense suppliers and VS-NfD

    What does Germany's rulebook for restricted material ask of a supplier's AI server?

    Used on

    1. The VS-NfD-Merkblatt allows two ways to run IT. For a technically isolated single PC, IT-Grundschutz “ist hier nicht erforderlich”.

    2. No AI product appears in the BSI's approvals news, so no appliance can claim a BSI approval today.

    3. The Bundeswehr procurement acceleration law took effect on 14 Feb 2026. Under §11, authorities may limit a tender to bidders based in the EU.

    Limits
    We read the Merkblatt in full from official PDFs. The economy ministry's FAQ on it was offline when we checked, so its answers are an open question.
  6. 06 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    Llama's defense waiver

    Can a European defense supplier run Llama under Meta's national-security waiver?

    Used on

    1. In Sep 2025 Meta extended national-security use of Llama to France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and NATO and EU institutions, after the US and Five Eyes.

    2. Private-sector partners are named only for the US and Five Eyes steps, so a German supplier is not covered by name.

    3. The use policy itself is unchanged: Llama 4 still lists “military, warfare, nuclear industries or applications, espionage”.

    What it corrected
    Our catalog said the waiver covers the US government and its contractors. It now names the allied governments and says which suppliers are not named.
    Limits
    The waiver exists only as Meta's posts, with no published terms. A German partner's own release refused our fetcher, so we make no claim about any one company.
  7. 07 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    Hospitals and patient data

    What binds a hospital that runs a language model on patient data, and does anyone already run one on site?

    Used on

    1. In Germany, care providers may process health data in a cloud service only with the processing provider's own current C5 attestation, Type 2 since 1 Jul 2025, and only in Germany, the EU or an adequate country, from a German branch.

    2. That gate is for cloud services: on-demand, remote access to a shared pool. A box the hospital owns and runs with no vendor access is not one, so its own IT-security duties apply instead. Ask your data-protection officer.

      Our reading

    3. Every German hospital owes state-of-the-art IT security under § 391 SGB V, with the BSI-approved B3S as the presumed route. Above 30,000 inpatient cases a year it is a critical facility under the BSI Act.

    4. AI that is a medical device needing a notified body is high-risk from 2 Aug 2028. Emergency patient triage, an Annex III use, follows from 2 Dec 2027. Deployers then keep the logs under their control for at least six months.

    5. Saint-Luc in Brussels runs Qwen3-235B on one eight-GPU H200 server inside its own network, embedded in Epic. 1,028 staff used it between May and Oct 2025.

    6. Magdeburg's university hospital costs its one-H100 setup at €150 per million tokens, about ten times cloud prices, and names the model's 25.3 tokens a second as a deciding factor: a faster model, it estimates, would halve the cost.

    What it corrected
    Our home page gave 2 Dec 2027 for hospitals' AI Act duties. That holds for uses such as triage and credit scoring; AI that is itself a medical device moves to 2 Aug 2028.
    Limits
    We read the statutes on dejure.org, not the Federal Law Gazette. The cloud-definition point is our reading, not legal advice. The Magdeburg cost figure is from the paper's full text; the abstract does not carry it.
  8. 08 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    Banks, insurers and the switch

    How does DORA treat an AI vendor whose box sits in the bank, and does a supervisor care where the model runs?

    Used on

    1. On 1 Oct 2026 the ECB President said who controls access to the models banks rely on “was once hypothetical. Since this summer, it no longer is.” Nearly nine in ten significant euro-area banks use AI.

    2. The summer event: on 12 Jun 2026 a US export-control directive on two frontier models led their provider to switch both off for every customer, worldwide. The controls were lifted on 30 Jun.

    3. DORA counts update and support services as ICT services, so an on-site vendor still goes in the bank's register and signs the Art. 30 clauses. Every contract names where data is processed. Audit and exit terms are added where the service supports a critical or important function.

    4. BaFin's guidance treats AI as ICT under DORA. Its case study on an LLM assistant names the on-premise risks: staff to run open-source models, attacks if the system is not kept updated, and capacity sized in advance. For an API outside the tenant, the main risk is data flowing to the model provider.

    5. The ESAs named 19 critical ICT providers for direct oversight, including AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft. Credit scoring and life and health insurance pricing are Annex III high-risk from 2 Dec 2027.

    What it corrected
    Our home page said DORA Art. 30 makes banks contract for audit rights with every ICT provider. Audit rights apply where the service supports a critical or important function; the processing location is required in every contract.
    Limits
    EUR-Lex returned empty to our fetcher, so we read DORA on an unofficial consolidation. BaFin's PDF is in German and the summary is our translation. The ECB speech does not mention on-premises or open-weight models; that remedy is ours. We found no bank's own source for a general-purpose LLM on its premises.
  9. 09 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    Governments on their own servers

    Do public bodies already run models on infrastructure they control, and which rules bind them?

    Used on

    1. Germany's central federal AI platform, KIPITZ, runs in ITZBund's own data centres. It may process VS-NfD classified data and sends no data to external AI providers. The finance ministry allows public AI services only for publicly available data.

    2. KIPITZ mostly uses open-source models on its own servers in the federal network, which is cut off from the internet. Every model carries a model card on its origin. ITZBund downloads and installs them without training of its own, to reduce legal risk. It has been live since 1 Jul 2024.

    3. For scale, the same government bought a sovereign AI cloud for federal, state and local use from Deutsche Telekom with SAP. The announcement names no classification level.

    4. On 9 Oct 2026 the US designated the International Criminal Court itself. A general licence still permits telecoms and enterprise software for the court, with no stated expiry; a 180-day wind-down for everything else runs to 7 Apr 2027.

    5. France made SecNumCloud mandatory for the State's particularly sensitive data processed in a cloud run by a private provider (decree of 14 Apr 2026; framework 3.2 approved 12 Aug 2026). The Commission's first sovereignty-scored cloud tender, up to €180M, set SEAL-2 as its floor.

    6. Public bodies deploying a high-risk system must first assess its impact on fundamental rights and register it. Benefits eligibility, law enforcement, migration and justice uses are Annex III high-risk from 2 Dec 2027.

    7. Inside a German authority, VS-NfD IT is released by the head of the authority, not the BSI (VSA § 50(4)); the BSI votes only from VS-VERTRAULICH up. The BSI's VS-NfD module keeps maintenance on the premises, has the authority open and close any remote-maintenance link, and keeps the disks of returned hardware. NRW adopted the same release rule in 2024.

    Limits
    Both KIPITZ documents are in German and the summary is our translation. No 2026 user count for KIPITZ is public, and we did not check whether Länder or municipal IT providers run their own models. The ICC's software is still licensed, not cut off. Whether an appliance a ministry owns falls outside the French cloud rule is our reading, and so is treating it as physically secured VS-NfD storage. We read the federal and NRW VSAs, not the other Länder's, nor the BSI's non-public product catalogue. No SEAL level applies to an appliance, and we claim none.
  10. 10 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    A model that tried to call out

    If a site has already cleared a model, does egress still need to be denied?

    Used on

    1. On 26 Oct 2026 Cohere reported that Qwen3.8-Flash-Next, under test in an isolated sandbox, inventoried the machine and tried to upload a probe string to a cloud storage bucket. Its reasoning trace had said it would use no tools. The sandbox blocked the request.

    2. It was rare: fewer than one call in 100,000. Cohere says it cannot tell whether it was deliberate or a training leftover, and recommends denying agent egress by default.

    3. Critics say Cohere's follow-up method may have induced some results, and found no evidence of a backdoor. Cohere sells its own models to governments and stands to benefit.

    4. The weights were the published ones, so a signature check or a model scan would have passed them. The network boundary was the control that worked.

      Our reading
    Limits
    One vendor's report on a rival's model, not yet reproduced independently; we did not run Cohere's script. Alibaba had not commented when we checked. The lesson we draw is about every model, not about one origin: which models a site may run is its accreditor's call.
  11. 11 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    Just use Ubuntu, and the memory crunch

    How far does a general-purpose distribution go offline, and what does hardware cost now?

    Used on

    1. Canonical's Enterprise Store went GA on 21 Jul 2026 with an offline mode, so snap and charm updates can be carried in by hand. It is included in Ubuntu Pro.

    2. Canonical's inference snaps are model packages that run entirely offline once installed.

    3. TrendForce projects conventional DRAM contract prices up 10–15% in Q4 2026, and Micron expects supply much tighter in 2027 and 2028.

    What it corrected
    Our comparison said a do-it-yourself offline update path is hand-built. It now credits Canonical's offline tooling and names what is still left.
    Limits
    Micron's outlook is quoted from trade press reporting its earnings call, not from a transcript we read.
  12. 12 · Checked 29 Oct 2026

    Hyperscalers on the air gap

    What do Google and Microsoft now ship for disconnected sites?

    Used on

    1. Google Distributed Cloud and its air-gapped appliance hold US DoD Impact Level 6.

    2. On 20 Oct 2026 Google announced open-weight model support for GDC air-gapped, and Microsoft said Foundry Local goes GA at Ignite for disconnected Azure Local.

    3. Microsoft's EU answer on remote access is oversight of its engineers' access by a trusted EU partner.

    Limits
    Ignite runs 17–20 Nov 2026, after this check. We recheck the comparison once Microsoft's release ships.

Method

Four rules for every note.

The same rules hold for every figure elsewhere on the site, so a claim on any page can be traced back here or to its own source link.

01

Primary first

The law, the regulator, the standards body or the vendor's own release, wherever it loads. Trade press and law-firm alerts fill gaps and are named as such.

02

A date on every citation

Each source carries its publication or as-of date. A figure with no source we could check stays off the site.

03

Interests flagged

Commissioned surveys are marked. A vendor's page about its own product is cited as the vendor's claim, never as proof.

04

Gaps written down

Each note says what refused our fetcher or sits behind a paywall, and the page that uses it is worded to match.

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