50% of my consulting work right now is helping companies use open-source models at scale. Everyone knows how to use an open-source LLM on their computers, but it's really hard to do this at scale for thousands of users. Here is how this plays out: 1. A team builds a prototype using DeepSeek. 2. Everything looks good. It works! 3. They follow an online guide to deploy the model online. 4. They ask 10 users to try the app. 5. Latency spikes everywhere. 6. The entire system halts. 7. They blame DeepSeek and try again using a new model. The problem is always with scaling inference, not the model. Here is one recommendation I give companies: Check out Nebius Token Factory if you don't want to ever think about deploying an open-source model again. This is a managed inference platform for deploying open-source LLMs at scale. This is not for prototypes or research experiments. This is for when you have a real application with real users. Three important notes about Token Factory: • You have complete control over how inference runs. • You have predictable tail latency (P99, not averages). • No surprise costs when you scale up. You can preplan your budget. ...