nim

title	NVIDIA NIM
description	This example shows how to deploy DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-8B to any cloud or on-premises environment using NVIDIA NIM and dstack.

NVIDIA NIM

This example shows how to deploy DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-8B using NVIDIA NIM :material-arrow-top-right-thin:{ .external }{:target="_blank"} and dstack.

??? info "Prerequisites" Once dstack is installed, clone the repo with examples.

<div class="termy">

```shell
$ git clone https://github.com/dstackai/dstack
$ cd dstack
```

</div>

Deployment

Here's an example of a service that deploys DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-8B using NIM.

type: service
name: serve-distill-deepseek

image: nvcr.io/nim/deepseek-ai/deepseek-r1-distill-llama-8b
env:
  - NGC_API_KEY
  - NIM_MAX_MODEL_LEN=4096
registry_auth:
  username: $oauthtoken
  password: ${{ env.NGC_API_KEY }}
port: 8000
# Register the model
model: deepseek-ai/deepseek-r1-distill-llama-8b

# Uncomment to leverage spot instances
#spot_policy: auto

# Cache downloaded models
volumes:
  - instance_path: /root/.cache/nim
    path: /opt/nim/.cache
    optional: true

resources:
  gpu: A100:40GB
  # Uncomment if using multiple GPUs
  #shm_size: 16GB

Running a configuration

To run a configuration, use the dstack apply command.

$ NGC_API_KEY=...
$ dstack apply -f examples/inference/nim/.dstack.yml

 #  BACKEND  REGION    RESOURCES                  SPOT  PRICE
 1  vultr    ewr       6xCPU, 60GB, 1xA100 (40GB) no    $1.199
 2  vultr    ewr       6xCPU, 60GB, 1xA100 (40GB) no    $1.199
 3  vultr    nrt       6xCPU, 60GB, 1xA100 (40GB) no    $1.199

Submit the run serve-distill-deepseek? [y/n]: y

Provisioning...
---> 100%

If no gateway is created, the model will be available via the OpenAI-compatible endpoint at <dstack server URL>/proxy/models/<project name>/.

$ curl http://127.0.0.1:3000/proxy/models/main/chat/completions \
    -X POST \
    -H 'Authorization: Bearer <dstack token>' \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{
      "model": "meta/llama3-8b-instruct",
      "messages": [
        {
          "role": "system",
          "content": "You are a helpful assistant."
        },
        {
          "role": "user",
          "content": "What is Deep Learning?"
        }
      ],
      "max_tokens": 128
    }'

When a gateway is configured, the OpenAI-compatible endpoint is available at https://gateway.<gateway domain>/.

Source code

The source-code of this example can be found in examples/inference/nim :material-arrow-top-right-thin:{ .external }{:target="_blank"}.

What's next?

1. Check services
2. Browse the DeepSeek AI NIM