We got tired of renting intelligence.
Every other AI company sells access.
Access can be revoked, repriced, throttled, surveilled,
or deprecated at any time.
You are renting intelligence from someone who can
change the terms whenever they want.
SimpleDirect sells the asset itself.
You download the model. It runs on your machine.
Your data never leaves your network.
No API key, no per-token billing, no terms of service
that update quarterly.
Once you have it, it is yours —
permanently, unconditionally, and irrevocably.
What SimpleDirect is not
Not an API company.
We do not sell inference. We sell the model itself.
Not a platform.
There is no hosted dashboard. No cloud dependency.
Not competing with frontier labs.
We are not building GPT-5. We are building the best model you can actually run, own, and trust on your own hardware.
Not a data company.
Your data stays on your machine. We never see it, collect it, or monetize it.
Not a consulting firm.
We ship software. George writes about ownership. Those are separate.
How we decide
Every product decision gets filtered through one question:
"Does this make it easier for someone to own their AI?"
If yes, do it. If no, kill it.
Model update notifications? Yes
Helps you keep your owned model current.
Cloud inference option? No
That is renting, not owning.
Releasing training datasets? Yes
Lets others train their own models.
Adding telemetry? No
Violates the ownership promise. Permanently.
Per-seat licensing? No
Ownership is not per-seat. It is per-organization.
Leadership
George Pu
Founder
Founder of SimpleDirect. Building toward AI you can own — open-weight models that run on your hardware, training infrastructure that stays in Canada, and a deployable appliance for regulated buyers who can't use the cloud.
Writes about Canadian AI infrastructure decisions at Founder Reality and posts daily on X.
SimpleDirect currently trains models on Canadian GPU clusters in Montreal and Rimouski. Every analysis published is grounded in infrastructure George actually runs.
Vikas Grover
COO & CFO
COO and CFO at SimpleDirect. Runs operations, finance, partnerships, and the analytics that keep the company honest about what's working and what isn't.
Five years operating Canadian startups. Aeronautical Engineering degree from Toronto Metropolitan University. Formerly a commercial pilot at Air Canada.
Engineering team based in Canada and around the world.
How we operate
Operator-credible, not consultant-credible.
Every analysis we publish is grounded in infrastructure we actually run. We build what we recommend. We deploy what we build.
Lean by design, not by accident.
We choose to stay small so the principal stays in the work. The depth comes from focus, not from headcount.
Content and capability compound.
Public analysis on AI infrastructure decisions and shipped capability — open-weight models, deployment toolkits, reference architectures — are the dual mechanism. Both intentionally visible, intentionally documented, intentionally reproducible.
Canadian by structure, sovereign by operation.
The work originates in Canada, runs on Canadian sovereign infrastructure, and is governed by Canadian law. Design choices that matter — not marketing posture.
Public process, durable record.
We publish what we learn. Access to Information requests, blog posts, model releases. The body of work is the credibility, not the org chart.
No tools without need, no platforms without proof.
We do not build software people haven't asked for. We do not position as a platform before there is evidence. The discipline is the moat.
What to expect
Engagement is selective.
Three to five client engagements per year, by referral or inbound only. We do not pitch new business.
We respond to inbound within five business days.
Including saying no when the fit is wrong. We say no with reasons we can explain.
Engagement scope is defined upfront.
We do not take open-ended retainers. We do not take "let's figure it out as we go" engagements. We define what we will deliver before work begins.
We publish what we learn.
With client approval, anonymized where required, we write up the substance of completed engagements. The work compounds into the body of work.
We tell you when you don't need us.
Many organizations asking about sovereign AI infrastructure already have the right answer (commercial API with a Data Processing Agreement). We will say so when it's true.
Where we are on the ladder
We are climbing the same ladder we write about.
Right now we are training models on Canadian GPU clusters in Montreal and Rimouski.
Later this year, colocation. Our own hardware. Fifty steps from the office.
We document every step — real costs, real tradeoffs, real experience. Because nobody else is doing that for people who don't already speak the language.