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cuVS Environment Setup

This guide explains how to configure and verify a GPU-capable environment for running KDB-X cuVS workloads.

Prerequisites

Component Requirement
Operating System Linux kernel 4.18 or newer (Ubuntu 20.04+, RHEL 8+)
GPU Ampere architecture or newer (e.g. A100/H100, 40 GB+ VRAM) recommended for large-scale datasets. VRAM requirements vary with index size
GPU Driver NVIDIA driver ≥ 580
CPU x86-64 (AMD64) architecture

ARM not supported

ARM architectures (including Apple Silicon) are not supported.

CUDA-capable GPUs

The host machine must have one or more CUDA-capable NVIDIA GPUs with at least 40 GB VRAM. To check for a compatible GPU, run:

lspci | grep -i nvidia

Example output:

38:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation AD104GL [L4] (rev a1)
3a:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation AD104GL [L4] (rev a1)

Note

If the command returns no results, contact your system administrator. For a full list of CUDA-capable GPUs, refer to the NVIDIA website: CUDA GPU Compute Capability.

Check existing drivers with nvidia-smi

To check whether NVIDIA drivers are already installed, run:

nvidia-smi

If drivers are installed, the command displays GPU information:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 590.48.01              Driver Version: 590.48.01      CUDA Version: 13.1     |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA L4                      Off |   00000000:38:00.0 Off |                    0 |
| N/A   38C    P0             27W /   72W |       0MiB /  23034MiB |      0%      Default |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

Check the output:

  • nvidia-smi not found – NVIDIA GPU drivers are not installed. Refer to the instructions below.
  • No GPU listed – no compatible NVIDIA GPU detected. cuVS cannot run on CPU-only systems.
  • Driver version less than 580 – driver is too old. Update to the latest version.

If driver version is 580 or higher, no further action is needed. You can skip the next section and proceed to Install KDB-X and the cuVS Module.

Driver dependencies and CUDA compatibility

The cuVS module requires NVIDIA driver ≥ 580. CUDA dependencies are installed automatically as part of the module installation — refer to Install KDB-X and the cuVS Module.

CUDA provides backward compatibility, meaning a newer driver can run applications built with an older CUDA Toolkit. We recommend installing the latest driver. Use the following link to install the latest version for your OS:

You must install drivers for a compatible host OS. For installation examples refer to: