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Bud Model Foundry overview
Product Brief · Layer 03 · Model Training

Bud Model Foundry

The sovereign-grade, multi-vendor, agentic-first training platform — build, fine-tune, post-train and agentic-train open models on your own infrastructure, with research-grade control and production-grade operations. No InfiniBand, no hosted dependency, no hardware tax.

Product reference v1.0 July 2026 ~14 min read
01At a glance

Full-spectrum training, inside your perimeter.

Bud Model Foundry covers everything between raw data and a registered, production-ready model — data preparation, six training stages, step-level control, a built-in agentic-RL substrate, serving, and lineage — designed for sovereign deployment and engineered to perform on commodity hardware.

Open models118+
Bandwidth reduction500×
Platform REST APIs350+
GPU vendors4
500× = inter-node, typical multi-node DiLoCo case · methodology in §06
What it is
An agentic-first model training platform for the enterprise — continued pre-training, supervised fine-tuning, preference optimization, and reinforcement learning on open models
Runs on the GPUs you already own — NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm and Intel, mixed across vendors, over commodity Ethernet
Five design commitments built into the foundation, not bolted on: sovereign by deployment, multi-vendor by design, agentic-first by purpose, end-to-end by scope, production-grade from day one
What it is not
A serving plane — governed inference at scale is Bud AI Foundry, one layer up
A hosted training service — it installs inside your perimeter with no required outbound connection
A single-vendor GPU stack — NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm and Intel, with PCIe cards as first-class hardware
02Where it fits

Layer 03 of the Bud stack.

Model Foundry is the training plane. Models trained here register with lineage and flow into Bud AI Foundry serving one layer up; production signal flows back down through drift detection and feedback.

Feeds upward — checkpoints register with full lineage and deploy into Bud AI Foundry serving at Layer 04, with no export/import seam. Training runs under Bud SENTRY governance like every other layer.

Builds on Bud Pod's pooled GPU compute and Bud LayerZero's kernel orchestration — which is how mixed NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm and Intel fleets appear as one training substrate.

03Capabilities, in full

The full training surface.

The full training surface, expanded to the specifics an evaluator needs — the training matrix, the DiLoCo mechanics, the Tinker primitives, the agentic-RL substrate, the data flywheel, and the five interfaces.

01Full-spectrum training core6 training stages · 7 fine-tuning methods · 9 quantization formats · 10 optimizer families · pre-flight memory, time & cost estimates118+ models
02Bud DiLoCo distributed trainingInner AdamW loop per island · pseudo-gradient sync every ~100 steps · standard Ethernet under 100 Mbit/s — no InfiniBand100–500×
03Bud Tinker step-level control8 training-loop primitives as REST + SDK · bit-exact pause / resume · custom RL & step-level debugging8 primitives
04Agentic RL & Simplified ART3 rollout modes · 4 environments · 8 loss functions · 10 graders · 5 pre-built recipes10 graders
05Data pipeline & flywheelDrag-and-drop DAG · text, image, audio, video & code · local, multiprocess or Ray at TB scale · closed drift-to-feedback loop260+ operators
06Five interfaces, one platformPython SDK · 350+ REST APIs · 35-page dashboard · server TUI · MCP server5 surfaces

Full-spectrum training core

Most platforms cover a slice. Model Foundry covers the whole spectrum — all configurable, all validated.

Training stages 6

Continued pre-trainingSupervised fine-tuningReward modellingPPO — online RLHFDPO — offline preferenceKTO — asymmetric

Fine-tuning methods 7

Full FTLoRAQLoRADoRALoRA+OFTLayer freeze

Quantization formats 9

BNBGPTQAWQAQLMQuantoEETQHQQMXFP4FP8

Optimizer families 10

AdamWAdamW 8-bitLionSophiaAdaLoMoAdEMAMixGaLoreApolloBAdamAdafactor

Every job launches with pre-flight memory, time and cost estimates per GPU — no OOM-then-restart — and streams loss, learning rate and GPU metrics live over WebSocket.

Bud DiLoCo — low-bandwidth distributed training

The capability that breaks the SXM dependency. Standard distributed training syncs gradients every step, demanding 100+ Gbit/s InfiniBand. Bud DiLoCo runs an inner AdamW loop per node, then syncs a pseudo-gradient through an outer Nesterov optimizer — cutting inter-node bandwidth by orders of magnitude.

Conventional · sync every step
GPU nodeGPU node

Gradients exchanged at every optimization step — requires InfiniBand above 100 Gbit/s, locking you to SXM HGX hardware.

Bud DiLoCo · sync every ~100 steps
islandisland

A single pseudo-gradient summarises hundreds of micro-updates — runs over standard Ethernet under 100 Mbit/s.

01Inner loopEach island runs standard AdamW on its local shard for ~100 steps. No inter-node traffic.
02Pseudo-gradientEach island computes the delta between current and starting parameters.
03Outer loopPseudo-gradients sync over Gloo/Ethernet via an outer Nesterov SGD optimizer.
04RepeatSame total step count; inter-node bandwidth reduced 100×–500×.
100× minimum reduction — conservative 500× typical multi-node case <100 Mbit/s sufficient bandwidth 4,800× with int4 + adapter sync — roadmap

The 4,800× figure assumes int4 compression plus adapter-only synchronization and is a roadmap projection, not a shipping number.

Bud Tinker — step-level training control

Most platforms only let you submit-and-wait. Bud Tinker exposes the eight primitive operations of a training loop as REST endpoints and SDK methods — each call preserving full training state with bit-exact reproducibility, wrapped in the same auth, audit and encryption as a production pipeline.

forwardbackwardstepzero-gradgeneratelogprobssaveload
Custom RL algorithms Step-level debugging Multi-turn agentic RL Bit-identical pause / resume

Agentic RL & Simplified ART

Reinforcement learning is the dominant technique for agentic systems, and Model Foundry ships the entire substrate — not a generic RL toolkit. Three rollout modes (sync, async, streaming) run against real or simulated tools; ten graders, including a tool-call grader with partial-credit rewards, teach an agent to refine rather than just pass or fail.

3 RL training modes 4 built-in environments 8 loss functions 10 graders 5 pre-built recipes

Simplified ART layers a teaching metaphor over that substrate, opening agentic training to subject-matter experts, not just researchers. Five pre-built recipes — Reasoning, Code, Support, Tool Use and Safety — ship with sensible defaults.

01StudentThe model + skill module that gets trained
02CoachRuns eval cycles, trains weaknesses, auto-stops on plateau
03CurriculumThe training set, from JSONL, CSV, HF or inline
04GraderConverts each rollout into a reward signal
05ImprovementCompiles to a full RL run — capability ceiling unchanged

Data pipeline & the continuous-improvement flywheel

Model quality is bounded by data quality, so the pipeline is a first-class subsystem: 260+ operators in a drag-and-drop DAG filter, dedupe, transform and balance data across text, image, audio, video and code. Pipelines run locally, multiprocess, or on a Ray cluster — the same DAG scales to TB-scale corpora — and every dataset version is rebuildable from its source and processing config.

Most AI initiatives stall because training and deployment are separate concerns. Model Foundry closes the loop inside the perimeter, with a full audit trail at every step:

01Dataset 02Pipeline 03Training 04Checkpoint 05Registry 06Inference 07Drift 08Feedback↺ back to 01

Five interfaces to the same platform

From researchers writing Python, to operators in the dashboard, to autonomous agents calling Model Foundry as MCP tools — use whichever fits your team.

Python SDK

Sync + async, fluent builders, pre-flight estimates.

REST API

350+ endpoints, OpenAPI, webhooks, idempotency.

Web dashboard

35-page GUI with progressive disclosure and 11 chart types.

Server TUI

Runs in any SSH session — air-gapped friendly.

MCP server

Training as tools any LLM agent can call.

A job submitted through the SDK can be paused from the dashboard, monitored from the TUI, and registered by an MCP-driven agent — all on the same job, all with the same lineage.

04How it works

Seven layers, each independently scalable.

Engineered for graceful degradation — core training and RL run on pure PyTorch and stay available even when optional high-level components are not.

LayerWhat lives there
ConsumptionSDK, 350+ REST endpoints, 35-page dashboard, server TUI, OpenAI-compatible clients, MCP server.
GatewayFastAPI with ordered middleware: request-ID, idempotency, size limits, rate limiting, auth, RBAC, CORS.
ExecutionCelery workers (training, pipelines, imports) and in-process pipelines (Tinker, RL, fast inference).
Core enginesBud Tinker, Training Pipelines, Bud RL Engine, Simplified ART, DiLoCo Orchestrator — all pure PyTorch.
Platform subsystemsData pipeline, inference engine, model registry, drift detection, feedback collector.
Cross-cutting servicesAuth, AES-256-GCM encryption, audit logging, cost tracking, notifications, idempotency.
PersistencePostgreSQL for state + registry, Redis for cache/queues, MinIO/S3 for artifacts.

One auth surface and one audit log span all seven layers — the same security envelope wraps a research-grade Tinker call and a production training pipeline.

05Deployment & compatibility

One command, inside your perimeter.

No hosted dependency, no required outbound connection, no telemetry leaving your environment. Three deployment patterns from the same installer.

PatternBest forWhat you get
Single-node Docker ComposePilot & single-team productionDeployed in 30 minutes
Kubernetes via HelmMulti-team productionHorizontal scaling
Air-gapped on-premiseDefence & classified workloadsMaximum sovereignty — no outbound path at all
bud-install
bud-install
[01/07] Detecting host environment
  OS: Ubuntu 22.04 · GPU: NVIDIA H100 PCIe 80GB × 4
[02/07] Installing PyTorch with CUDA 12.6 wheel
[03/07] Installing platform components
[04/07] Starting services · PostgreSQL · Redis · MinIO
[05/07] Running database migrations
[06/07] Verifying installation
✓ All services healthy · API on :8000 · Dashboard on :3000

The security envelope

✓ AES-256-GCM at rest ✓ Full audit trail ✓ OAuth / OIDC SSO ✓ bcrypt-hashed API keys ✓ Model-level RBAC ✓ Atomic quotas ✓ 4 rate-limiting algorithms ✓ Key rotation · 90-day TTL ✓ Customer-controlled storage ✓ Prometheus metrics
06Proof & methodology

Every headline number, with its basis.

Each claim is paired with how it arises and the conditions it holds under — including the ones that are projections rather than measurements.

100–500×
Inter-node bandwidth reduction
How it's measuredDiLoCo's sync cadence: one pseudo-gradient every ~100 inner steps instead of a gradient exchange every step. 100× is the conservative floor; 500× is the typical multi-node case. A further 4,800× figure assumes int4 compression plus adapter-only synchronization and is a roadmap projection, not a shipping number.
<100Mbit/s
Sufficient inter-node bandwidth
How it's measuredWhat the outer Nesterov sync actually transfers over Gloo/standard Ethernet, versus the 100+ Gbit/s InfiniBand that per-step gradient exchange demands. This is the claim that makes PCIe clusters and commodity networking viable for multi-node training.
118+
Supported open models
How it's measuredThe platform support matrix at release — architectures validated across the six training stages and seven fine-tuning methods. The count grows as upstream model families release; treat it as a floor, not a fixed catalog.
30min
To a running platform
How it's measuredThe single-node Docker Compose pattern via bud-install — host detection, PyTorch wheel, services, migrations, verification. Time to first production job ranges from 30 minutes to days depending on pattern, versus 6–12 months assembling the equivalent DIY open-source stack.
ClaimMetricBasisConditions & caveats
100–500× bandwidth reductioninter-node trafficSync cadence: pseudo-gradient per ~100 steps vs per-step gradients100× conservative · 500× typical multi-node
4,800× bandwidth reductioninter-node trafficint4 compression + adapter-only syncroadmap — not shipping
<100 Mbit/s sufficientlink bandwidthOuter-loop sync over Gloo/Ethernetvs 100+ Gbit/s InfiniBand conventional
118+ supported modelsarchitecture countPlatform support matrixat release · grows upstream
30 min deploymentwall-clock installSingle-node Docker Compose via bud-installpilot pattern · production 30 min–days
Bit-exact reproducibilitytraining stateTinker preserves full state at every primitive callbit-identical pause / resume

Counted surfaces — 6 stages, 7 methods, 9 quantization formats, 10 optimizers, 10 graders, 260+ data operators, 350+ REST endpoints — are inventory counts of shipping features, not benchmark results.

07Why Bud Optional

The same capability surface — on your hardware, inside your perimeter.

Against the three alternatives every evaluator has already considered: hosted fine-tuning services, hyperscaler ML platforms, and assembling the open-source stack yourself.

CapabilityHosted servicesHyperscalerDIY open-sourceBud Model Foundry
Sovereign / air-gappedFailsPartialPassPass
Predictable cost at scalePer-tokenGPU-hour + egressCapEx + opsLicense-based
Multi-vendor GPU supportLimitedCatalogue onlyDIYNVIDIA · AMD · Qualcomm · Intel
Agentic-RL stack built inNoPartialDIYFull stack
Commodity-Ethernet trainingNoNoRareBud DiLoCo
Time to first production jobDaysWeeks6–12 months30 min – days
Lifecycle scope — registry · driftTraining onlyLimitedDIY eachEnd-to-end
Sovereign by deployment Multi-vendor by design Commodity-Ethernet training Agentic-RL substrate built in End-to-end lifecycle
08Who it's for By industry

Where the capability surface creates value.

The same platform, translated into concrete value across regulated and sovereignty-bound sectors.

Banking & insurance

Compliance-grade copilots

Compliance copilots with refusal training, audit-grade fraud-detection reasoning, and loan-origination assistants trained on internal policy.

Healthcare & life sciences

Clinical reasoning, in-perimeter

Clinical reasoning on de-identified notes, vision-language radiology assistants, and federated training across hospital consortia.

Defence & government

Fully air-gapped agents

Intelligence-analysis agents with no outbound path, multilingual citizen-service agents, and cyber-defence reasoning models.

Tier-2 / 3 cloud providers

Sovereign AI PaaS, white-label

Sovereign AI Platform-as-a-Service, multi-tenant LoRA serving at scale, and cost leadership via commodity-Ethernet training.

Enterprises with GPU CapEx

Sweat the fleet you own

Production training on PCIe-cluster fleets, multi-node training over commodity Ethernet, and mixed NVIDIA + AMD scheduling.

Sovereign-AI initiatives

National capability, national infra

National AI capability on national infrastructure — EU AI Act and DPDP provenance, reproducible datasets, and a complete audit trail.

09Go deeper & next steps

The platform argument, in full.

This brief is the product reference. For the platform-level case — why training, serving, and governance belong on one plane — read the whitepaper, or see a training run land on your own hardware.

Get started with Bud

Put your data on it.

The fastest way to see what an integrated AI operating system does for your enterprise is a proof-of-concept on your infrastructure, with your data.

01 Identify a use case where complexity, cost, or governance is a known pain point.
02 Joint discovery — Bud maps your AI pain points to platform capabilities.
03 POC in days, on your hardware, with your data.