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Episode 4 said: leave it on.

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But by default,

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a plugged-in Windows 11 PC
can sleep after five minutes.

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And updates can restart
it outside active hours:

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five in the evening
to eight in the morning.

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AI for Research Efficiency.
Episode 14: Where your agent lives.

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Last time,
you saw how this series is made.

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This time: where an agent can live,

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and how to keep it running
and reach it safely.

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One: the rungs.

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In a browser, the assistant
works on copies you upload.

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An agent on your laptop works in your
own folders, while the laptop is awake.

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The owner of this
series went further:

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first a small always-on computer, for
long runs steered from somewhere else.

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The owner's was a Beelink SER8, a
mini PC with 16 gigabytes of memory,

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known on the network as newt.

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Then a server with local tools,
in the owner's words,

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to help ensure both strict
confidentiality and cost control.

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Each rung adds something,
and costs something.

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Two: leave it on.

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OpenAI's own documentation
suggests a machine like this:

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use a dedicated always-on Mac
or Windows PC when you want ChatGPT

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to stay reachable
for longer-running work.

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The checklist, Windows first.

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Sleep: when plugged in, set
Make my device sleep after to Never;

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on a Mac,
turn on Prevent automatic sleeping.

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And on a laptop, closing the
lid can still put it to sleep.

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Some agents keep it awake
while they run: Antigravity,

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Claude Code on a Mac, and Codex with an
experimental setting, off by default.

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Updates: stretch active hours
over your runs, up to 18 hours,

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and restart it yourself between runs.

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After a power cut,
a Mac desktop can start up by itself,

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and so can some mini PCs.

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Three: keep the session alive.

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Close a terminal, and the agent in it
stops; each tool has a way around that.

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Claude Code's background
sessions need no terminal.

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They're a research preview,
and a shutdown or restart stops them.

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Antigravity's remote control
can run as a service;

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on Windows, starting it with the
computer needs an administrator.

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Codex's always-on host is
the ChatGPT desktop app.

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And on a Mac, Linux, or WSL, tmux keeps
an agent running after you disconnect.

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Cloud scheduled tasks, in Claude Code
and Codex, run with your computer off,

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on paid plans. Anything that needs
your own files needs the machine on.

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Four: reach it from anywhere.

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Each agent has a remote control.

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Claude Code's
and Codex's need a paid plan;

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Antigravity's documentation
names no plan.

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For everything else, there's SSH,
a terminal on the other machine,

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over Tailscale,

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a private network that works without
opening ports on your router.

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The vendors give two cautions: don't
expose it directly to the internet,

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and sign in with keys, not passwords.

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And Windows Remote Desktop needs
Windows Pro on the PC you connect to.

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The owner's own route changed over time:
first Remote Desktop; then WireGuard,

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the protocol Tailscale
is built on, and SSH;

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now an SSH app,
with tmux in several panes.

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Five: the power bill.

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In Arkansas,

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home power averaged about
13.7 cents a kilowatt-hour

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from January to August 2026.

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Left on all year, 10 watts costs
about $12, and 50 watts about $60.

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300 watts costs about $360:

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some $30 a month,
more than a $20 plan.

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Apple lists four watts at idle
for the Mac mini.

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For other machines,
a plug-in meter settles it.

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Six: a server with local models.

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The owner's server runs
its own language model,

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transcription and speech,
on two large graphics cards.

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It cost more than $30,000.

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By the owner's estimate, it has
saved more than 360 hours to date,

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over roughly nine months,

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and made possible projects like
video generation and testing;

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it's also used for editing and improving
internal grant development work.

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How good are local models?

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On one public index, in October 2026,
the best closed model scored 58;

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the owner's model, 40; and models
that fit one workstation, 12 to 34.

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Good enough, in our reading, for bulk
reading, transcription and first drafts;

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not a replacement
for the frontier on hard work.

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Open weights don't share one license:
Gemma 4's is Apache,

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a Qwen research license allows
research or evaluation only,

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and Llama 4 asks you
to display Built with Llama.

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And local isn't the same as approved.

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At the University of Arkansas,

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any AI tool used on
a university system

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or for university business
must be vetted and approved.

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NIH's ban on AI in review critiques
names the technology, not where it runs,

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in our reading.

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Health data and controlled
unclassified information bring rules

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for the machine itself.

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One trap: in Ollama,

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a model whose name ends in
:cloud runs on Ollama's servers.

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Seven: your agent and a local model.

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Codex documents it: --oss,
with Ollama or LM Studio.

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Claude Code works through a
setting those two document,

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but loses its remote control.

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Antigravity's command-line tool
documents only Google's Gemini API;

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its Python SDK can run local models.

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So, a pattern
that keeps the data local:

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a frontier agent builds and tests
the process on a made-up file

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with the same columns. Then you run it
on the real data, with a local model.

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Eight: two ways not to buy.

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Cloud agents keep working
while your laptop sleeps:

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Claude Code's
and Codex's on paid plans,

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and Google's Jules,
free for 15 tasks a day.

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But they work on a
copy of your project,

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in the vendor's cloud,
not on the files on your computer.

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Or use your campus.

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Most of the Arkansas High Performance
Computing Center's services are free

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to eligible researchers,
with GPU jobs of up to 72 hours.

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Nationally, NSF's ACCESS costs nothing,
and you don't need an NSF award.

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The National AI Research Resource pilot
requires open, publishable results.

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Nine: so,
where should your agent live?

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Runs that outlast the lid: a small
always-on computer, or a cloud agent.

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Graphics cards now and then: your campus
cluster or ACCESS, before you buy.

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Confidential data:
your campus's approved route first,

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and a local model only
with that approval.

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Wherever it lives, secure it: updates
on your schedule, an encrypted disk,

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nothing open to the internet,
and keys to sign in.

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Pause here, and try it:

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ask your agent to run the always-on
check from the companion page.

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You should see a
short report on sleep,

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updates and remote access,
with nothing changed.

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So: keep it awake, keep the
session alive, reach it safely,

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count the power, and remember that
local isn't the same as approved.

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That's the route.

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Next: In Practice, starting with Ask
for the process, not the answer.