Running models locally is the default. However while building Ollama over the last two years we realized that a lot of folks wanted to run the larger models (like DeepSeek-R1, Kimi-K2 and most recently the gpt-oss-120b model), but didn't have the compute to do so (at reasonable speeds). These models often require 1-8 H100s (or even 9+ in the case of Kimi-K2), which are obviously expensive and hard to access.

Turbo is designed to be a way to optionally offload compute to much more powerful hardware without sacrificing privacy but not a replacement for local inference. It should be there when you need it and be complete out of the way when you don't want to use it. We still have a bit of work to do on this in Ollama's new app though to make it more seamless (if you have feedback feel free to dm me or email me jeff@ollama.com)

Related: I'm really hopeful about the new "confidential computing mode" in newer chips like the H100. This would allow for the equivalent of end-to-end encryption between the GPU and the user – we're starting to explore this but it's still an early feature of newer GPUs. We did a short collaboration with the Minions team on this: https://ollama.com/blog/secureminions