Software and hardware that run in an organization's own facilities, on equipment it owns and operates.
On-Premises, often shortened to "on-prem", describes systems whose servers sit in the organization's own data centers or facilities.
In an on-premises deployment, the organization keeps full control of the infrastructure, and with it compute sovereignty. In public cloud deployments, by contrast, third-party vendors manage hardware that many customers share.
For enterprises that handle sensitive information, such as defense contractors and healthcare providers, on-premises deployment is often the only viable way to run systems like Large Language Models while staying compliant with data sovereignty laws.
See also Compute Sovereignty, Data Sovereignty, Private AI, Digital Transformation and Enterprise Architecture.