L1
Hardware
Physical compute substrate — CPUs, GPUs, TPUs, neuromorphic chips, and the silicon layer on which all inference runs.
ExampleNVIDIA H100 tensor cores enabling large-language-model inference at data-center scale.
Macro-Model · System-Scale Ontologies
Institutional Intelligence at Every Scale
Macro-Model is the reference vocabulary for designing AI architectures that span organizations, networks, and civilizations. It provides a formal 8-level scale ontology for reasoning about intelligence at institutional scope.
INV-000061 · Tier-C · DP-TRACK
INV-000061 · AI Scale Ontology
The 8-Level Scale Framework
A formal vocabulary for locating intelligence on a continuum from hardware substrate to civilizational coordination. Each level has distinct governance requirements, data flows, and ontological commitments.
L2
Edge Device
On-device inference nodes — mobile phones, IoT sensors, embedded MCUs, and wearables running compressed model weights locally.
ExampleApple Neural Engine executing on-device speech recognition without network round-trips.
L3
Application
Software-layer intelligence — models embedded in user-facing apps, APIs, and autonomous agents that consume platform services.
ExampleA customer-support chatbot calling a hosted LLM API to resolve tickets at scale.
L4
Platform
Multi-tenant AI infrastructure — cloud providers and model hubs that serve thousands of applications with metered compute and managed endpoints.
ExampleAWS Bedrock exposing foundation models to enterprise customers via a unified API gateway.
L5
Organization
Enterprise-scale intelligence — coordinated AI deployments spanning departments, business units, and organizational workflows.
ExampleA hospital network deploying specialized models across radiology, billing, and patient scheduling.
L6
Network
Cross-organization intelligence — AI systems that span supply chains, industry consortia, and multi-stakeholder ecosystems.
ExampleA logistics consortium sharing demand-forecast models across carriers to optimize network capacity.
L7
Society
Population-scale AI — systems shaping public infrastructure: education, public health, judicial assistance, and civic governance.
ExampleNational public-health AI monitoring epidemiological signals across a country's clinical reporting network.
L8
Civilizations
Planetary-scale intelligence — AI coordinating across nations, generations, and the long arc of human institutional memory.
ExampleClimate-modeling systems integrating satellite, ocean, and atmospheric data to inform inter-governmental policy.
Visual Reference
Scale Stack
Levels compose upward — each layer depends on and abstracts the capabilities below it.
L8Civilizations
L7Society
L6Network
L5Organization
L4Platform
L3Application
L2Edge Device
L1Hardware
CanonDraw Figures
See the ontology as a figure
These three reference figures were made in CanonDraw and are click-through editable. Open any figure to explore or adapt it in the live editor.
Intellectual Property
IP Reference
This ontology constitutes proprietary prior art. Refer to the DP-TRACK filing for formal specification.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Identifier | INV-000061 |
| Title | AI Scale Ontology — 8-Level Formal Vocabulary |
| Tier | Tier-C |
| Track | DP-TRACK (Deployment & Publication) |
| Levels | Hardware · Edge Device · Application · Platform · Organization · Network · Society · Civilizations |
| Domain | macro-model.com |
| Status | Active — build and deploy freely under this identifier |