---
title: "The Robotic Tortoise \u0026 the Robotic Hare"
description: "Stripe launched Tempo today. I raced Claude against a local model on my laptop - and the simpler model won."
categories: ["AI","development"]
keywords: ["Stripe Tempo","local AI models","Claude","Ollama","blockchain development","AI coding race"]
ai_summary: "A head-to-head race between Claude and a local model building on Stripe's new Tempo blockchain reveals that faster iteration beats raw intelligence."
date: 2026-03-18
lastmod: 2026-07-20
canonical_url: https://www.tomtunguz.com/local-vs-cloud-speed/
author: "Tomasz Tunguz"
---


I set up a race today between two robots.

My Mac on the left vs Claude Code on the right. Both tasked with building a payment app on Stripe's new Tempo blockchain. Same prompts, same task, side by side.

Opus 4.5 is [about 20% smarter](https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/comparisons/qwen3-5-35b-a3b-vs-claude-opus-4-5-thinking) than Qwen 35B on benchmarks. And it's likely 50x larger. The hare should have won. It didn't.

The local model finished in 2 minutes. Claude took over 6. I asked Claude to score both outputs : local model 6.5, Claude 4.5.[^1]

<div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; margin: 2rem 0;">
  <video style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;" controls autoplay muted loop playsinline>
    <source src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/video/upload/v1773877609/sxrqmdd4gs444t3mwk53.mp4" type="video/mp4">
  </video>
</div>
<p style="font-size: 0.85em; color: #666; margin-top: 0.5rem;">Video plays at 2x speed.</p>

With 3x faster responses, I could add an extra cycle : "critique the plan and address the critiques." In the time the hare was still thinking, the tortoise ran another lap.

| Prompt                       | Local (Qwen 35B) | Claude (Opus 4.5) |
| ---------------------------- | ---------------- | ----------------- |
| Research Tempo & create plan | 20.9s            | 55s               |
| Critique the plan            | 16.5s            | 1m 35s            |
| Which language is best?      | 16.5s            | 1m 35s            |
| Research feedback online     | 48.9s            | 2m 35s            |
| Save implementation plan     | 15.4s            | 44s               |
| **Total**                    | **~2 min**       | **~6 min 24s**    |

Faster responses mean more rounds of revision before a meeting ends or attention drifts. It's different for agentic coding workflows & complex codebases, where slower work may lead to better outcomes. But for everyday tasks, faster models can enable [tighter feedback loops](https://tomtunguz.com/feedback-loops/). [Tighter loops can produce better outcomes](https://tomtunguz.com/fast-sales-processes/).

We don't always need the smartest AI to get the job done.

[^1]: [Full screenshot of the race](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/ska3bbixic35ddwxzcrs) | [Video](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/video/upload/v1773877609/sxrqmdd4gs444t3mwk53.mp4)