Edge-First Language Model Inference: Models, Metrics, and Tradeoffs

--The widespread adoption of Language Models (LMs) across industries is driving interest in deploying these services across the computing continuum, from the cloud to the network edge. This shift aims to reduce costs, lower latency, and improve reliability and privacy. Small Language Models (SLMs), enabled by advances in model compression, are central to this shift, offering a path to on-device inference on resource-constrained edge platforms. This work examines the interplay between edge and cloud deployments, starting from detailed benchmarking of SLM capabilities on single edge devices, and extending to distributed edge clusters. We identify scenarios where edge inference offers comparable performance with lower costs, and others where cloud fallback becomes essential due to limits in scalability or model capacity. Index T erms --Edge Computing, Language Model Inference, Small Language Models (SLMs), Distributed AI, Performance-Cost Tradeoffs.