How a Defence Contractor Deployed AI Code Review in an Air-Gapped Environment

A defence contractor with a classified, air-gapped codebase needed AI-assisted code review without any external connectivity, ruling out all cloud-based solutions. The development team of twelve engineers was producing over 200,000 lines of code annually and struggling to maintain review quality. The solution involved deploying large language models entirely on-premise, running on locally controlled GPU hardware such as NVIDIA A100 servers. Key considerations included model size selection, 4-bit quantisation, inference server configuration, and CI/CD pipeline integration to meet strict compliance requirements. Hardware costs ranged from roughly $30,000–$45,000 for smaller teams, amortising to a figure comparable to standard cloud-based code review licensing.