A large model that reads privileged material - on hardware inside your control

01

The problem

Privilege is the constraint. Nothing privileged may touch a third-party model without a documented lawful basis and a defensible position on where it went. Outside-counsel guidelines are starting to ban public AI by name. Disclosure exercises and due diligence data rooms are the moments the ban becomes expensive, because the documents are long, the clock is short, and the only unofficial workaround is the one the guideline forbids.

02

What you can actually run

What you can actually run is a 70B-class open-weight model held in memory at full precision on a UK-hosted Mac Studio with 512GB of unified memory. It can take a first pass across a disclosure set, interrogate an executed contract, search the firm's own precedent bank, summarise a matter file, or draft from that precedent. It cannot look up a case. It cannot verify a citation. It is not regulated by the SRA. A fee earner reviews. MetalCloud is not ISO 27001 certified and does not hold SOC 2. A DPA is available on request, which a risk partner and a PI insurer will both ask for.

04

Why this hardware

This is a capacity machine: 512GB of unified memory on a single tenant. The CPU and GPU share one pool, so a large model and a large document set can sit in memory together at full precision. A 70B-class open-weight model is the named size class this configuration is used for.

It is not sold as a high-throughput service. Apple Silicon does not suit many simultaneous users, and this page makes no claim about tokens per second, response time, or concurrency. The fit is single-tenant, privacy-led, batch-friendly work: overnight processing, long documents, and a model that stays on hardware only your team can reach.

Dedicated monthly use is one customer on one machine. That is the product.

05

Buying one is not currently an option

Apple launched the M3 Ultra Mac Studio in March 2025 advertising up to 512GB of unified memory, and marketed it as able to run models with over 600 billion parameters entirely in memory.

In March 2026, MacRumors, 9to5Mac and Ars Technica reported that Apple withdrew the 512GB configuration. In May 2026, Apple Insider and others reported that the 256GB configuration was withdrawn as well. The M3 Ultra Mac Studio is now sold in a single 96GB configuration.

Secondary-market listings for 512GB units have been reported around $25,000, roughly £19,000-20,000, where they appear at all. Apple has given no public reason and has not said whether the change is permanent. The M5 Ultra Mac Studio has not shipped.

MetalCloud did not originate these facts. They are a matter of public reporting. This page will be rewritten if Apple restores a high-memory configuration.

06

Data handling

The machine is hosted in the UK. On the reserved monthly tier it is single-tenant: your team reaches the endpoint, and another firm does not share the box for that period. Execution is hardware-isolated at the machine.

MetalCloud does not hold SOC 2. ISO 27001 is not certified. A data processing agreement is available on request. Operator access, logging and retention are set out in that agreement and on the technical call, not invented here.

When you stop, you stop. What happens to residual data on disk is a DPA and offboarding question, and we will answer it in writing before you commit.

Where it sits

UK-hosted Mac Studio.

Who reaches it

Your team, on a reserved booking. Single tenant.

What is logged

Set out in the DPA and on the technical call. Not invented here.

Agreement

DPA available on request. ISO 27001 is not certified. SOC 2 is not held.

08

What MetalCloud is not

If you need a citator, buy a citator.

• Not a legal research platform. No case law, no citator.
• Does not verify citations.
• Not a substitute for fee earner review.
• Not regulated by the SRA.