66-Year-Old Solo Developer Launches Burritt AI Studio With Private 125B AI on 8GB Computers

The offline application combines chat, research, image creation and editing, song creation and homeschool teaching tools for MacBook Neo, MacBook Air and budget Windows PCs.

For immediate release

SULLIVAN, Wis., October 23, 2026. Ken Rheingans, a 66-year-old solo developer in rural Wisconsin, has launched Burritt AI Studio, a private, offline AI application he built himself. Delivered on a preloaded USB drive, Studio supports MacBook Neo and M1 MacBook Air systems and compatible budget Windows 11 PCs.

Burritt AI Studio is the first commercial product that lets nontechnical users run a 125-billion-parameter AI model entirely offline on the MacBook Neo and other budget laptops with just 8GB of RAM. It is also the first commercial product that lets nontechnical users create photorealistic images entirely offline on those computers, without a dedicated GPU. Nothing to download, install, or configure.

Studio offers chat, image creation and editing, song creation, Research and Teacher modes. Research uses a 20GB proprietary knowledge database shipped with the product to provide answers with sources. Teacher mode is designed for homeschooling parents and teachers. Studio also answers questions about users’ documents.

The model’s published PhD-level scientific reasoning results are competitive with frontier online AI models available 12 months ago. Studio’s exact four-bit package has not been independently evaluated on those benchmarks.

Rheingans built proprietary optimizations for chat, image generation and song creation. Studio is for people who already use AI chatbots and want an occasional private alternative for personal questions, confidential business plans or learning materials. No account or internet connection is required.

Burritt AI Studio never connects to the internet or sends information to Burritt Center or any other online service. All AI processing happens locally on your computer, whether your computer is online or offline.

“Some questions are too personal to become part of an online conversation history,” said Rheingans, creator of Burritt AI Studio. “I wanted people to have a private AI they could use on a laptop they already own.”

Studio’s largest model, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next, occupies 111GB in its four-bit packaged form. Rheingans developed a way to reorganize the 125B model into two files optimized for faster streaming from the SSD to the inferencing engine, without changing those model weights. The mixture-of-experts model activates selected components for each generated token. The proprietary engine caches these components within the computer’s memory budget, overlapping SSD reads with computation.

Studio’s Faster Performance option copies model files from the supplied USB flash drive to a fast internal or external SSD. Rheingans recommends running the 125B model from an SSD for much faster performance.

In Rheingans’ tests, the 125B model produced a detailed two-page answer in under 30 minutes on an 8GB MacBook Neo, using its internal SSD with thinking mode turned off. A standard-quality 768×768 image took about 4.5 minutes on the Neo, also using its internal SSD. In a separate test, a three-minute song in Fast mode took about 4.5 minutes on the Neo. Timings vary with hardware and task. Seven AI levels let users choose between speed and more capable models.

Rheingans’ proprietary image engine loads model components in stages and selects available graphics hardware automatically. A standard 1024×1024 image used about 4GB of memory in his tests. For images and songs, users describe what they want in plain language and make simple menu selections, without downloading models, building complex workflows or configuring technical software.

Teacher mode creates student readings, worksheets, quizzes, lesson plans and answer keys from curriculum stored on the drive. Parents and teachers select a grade and lesson from menus, and the materials list their source textbooks and are saved for printing. The drive also includes more than 200,000 encyclopedia articles and a library of books, all readable offline without using the AI.

Rheingans began writing software in 1976. His career spans aerospace real-time firmware design and development, building software products, optimizing applications and systems, and leading global IT as a vice president at a $20 billion Fortune 500 company. He has focused on AI for the past decade and built Studio from his home lab in rural southeast Wisconsin.

Answers, images and songs are generated locally, so Burritt Center does not incur cloud inference costs as customers use the product.

Burritt AI Studio is available on a 256GB USB drive for $118, with a $59 launch price for the first 100 customers, plus shipping. It supports Windows 11 and Apple silicon Macs with macOS 26 or later. There is no recurring subscription. Purchases include a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Product information and ordering: burrittcenter.com/AI-Studio

Video demonstrations are also available. Journalists and podcasters interested in independently testing Burritt AI Studio can contact Ken Rheingans to discuss their audience and coverage plans. A limited number of preloaded USB review drives are available following that conversation. Interviews and the technical backgrounder are also available.

About The Burritt Center

The Burritt Center, LLC is an offline AI product and consulting company based in Sullivan, Wisconsin. Founded in 2017, it develops software for consumers and organizations that want AI processing on hardware they control.

Media Contact

Ken Rheingans
Creator and solo developer, Burritt AI Studio
ken@burrittcenter.com

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