A client-ledger warehouse centralizes normalized holdings so every tool (reporting, AI, analytics) reads one store. That is often correct when the warehouse is already your governed system of record and ICT risk is accepted.
Edge ingestion + BYOC inference flips the default: parse where the export already is, keep primary state in buyer-approved stores, and send only bounded aggregates into a stateless inference hop. You trade “one lake for everything” for a smaller third-party blast radius on the AI path.
Open Portfolio competes on the second model. We concede the first: if your procurement already requires a hosted portfolio warehouse and your risk committee has signed that perimeter, a warehouse-first API may be simpler than a boundary retrofit.