NSK AI
Solutions · Energy and industry
Plate VI
NSK·SOL·06

Inference at the wellhead

Models sized for the hardware that is actually on site.

Fig. 1 — Power house mechanic working on a steam pump, 1920. Lewis Hine, public domain.
Plate VI
NSK·SOL·06
The problem

The site has a gateway with eight gigabytes of memory, intermittent backhaul, and a standing rule against sending video off the plant.

The useful model was trained for none of that. What matters is how much precision can be given up before it stops being right.

Set the precision budget.

Set the precision budget. Watch which digits survive it.

Weights, as stored
0.4213
-0.1187
0.9042
0.3376
-0.7551
0.0629
0.5108
-0.2894
Precision budget
16 bit
On disk
14.0 GB
Latency, per token
152 ms
Error delta
0.0 pts
Runs on
server only
Where it applies
Three places the same precision budget is used.
01
Inspection footage

Read at the gateway, with counts and alarms crossing the boundary and the video staying on the plant.

02
Maintenance history

Work orders, manuals and shift logs searched together, so a fault is met with what was done last time.

03
Shift handover

The log written from the shift's own records, for an operator to correct and sign.

Fig. 2 — Turbine and A.C. boards, Georgetown Power Station, 1909. Seattle Municipal Archives, CC BY 2.0.
A worked example
Model
7B at 4-bit, 3.5 GB
Throughput
3.2× at equal accuracy
Error delta at 4-bit
+0.4 points
Runs on
gateway, handheld, control room
Video sent off site
none
Figures from one deployment, quoted with the client’s permission. Yours will differ.
Notes on compliance
01

Site safety cases updated for advisory-only output. No model sits in the control loop.

02

Footage stays on the plant; only counts and alarms cross the boundary.

03

The alarm remains the operator’s decision, and is recorded as such.

Deployment
Week 1–2
Hardware audit, and a precision budget agreed
Week 3–6
Quantized candidates evaluated on site data
Week 7–10
Deployed to the gateway, shadowed by operators
Quarter 2
Written up as a precision-budget note
The other plates

Bring us the case you have not been able to close.

We will tell you which part of it is a model problem and which part is not.