---
title: "Ascend NPU Quickstart"
metatags:
  description: "Quickstart for running SGLang on Ascend NPUs with the official container image, including server launch and test request examples."
---

<Note>
This page covers only the simplest deployment flow using the official container image. For the complete installation guide
across all scenarios (source install, Docker build, system settings, version mapping, etc.),
see [SGLang installation with NPUs support](/docs/hardware-platforms/ascend-npus/ascend_npu).
</Note>

## Prerequisites

### Supported Devices

- Atlas 800I A2 inference series (Atlas 800I A2)
- Atlas 800I A3 inference series (Atlas 800I A3)

To identify your device, run `npu-smi info -l`: A3 reports `Chip Count: 2` per NPU, while A2 reports `Chip Count: 1` per NPU.
For hardware details, see the [Ascend NPU Reference](/docs/hardware-platforms/ascend-npus/ascend_npu_reference#hardware).

### Docker

Ensure Docker is installed and the Docker daemon is running on your host machine. Verify with:

```bash
docker --version && docker info
```

If Docker is not installed, follow the [official Docker installation guide](https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/) for
your operating system.

## Setup environment using container

<Warning>
Ensure sufficient disk space before proceeding. Run `df -h` to check the available disk space. The Docker image requires
at least **30GB** of free space. If you need to download model weights, check the model size at
[ModelScope](https://www.modelscope.cn/models) to reserve enough space.
</Warning>

<Tip>
We publish both **stable releases** and **daily builds**. Choose a stable release tag (e.g., `v0.5.14-cann9.0.0-a3`)
if you prefer a validated version, or a daily build tag (e.g., `main-cann9.0.0-a3`) if you need the latest development changes.
</Tip>

If you have already downloaded model weights to a local path (e.g., `/path/to/model`), mount the path into the container by
adding `--volume /path/to/model:/path/to/model` to the `docker run` command below.

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Atlas 800I A3">

```shell Command
# Choose one (uncomment the line you want):
export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/sglang:v0.5.14-cann9.0.0-a3              # Stable release
# export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/sglang:main-cann9.0.0-a3               # Daily build

docker run -it --rm --privileged --network=host --ipc=host --shm-size=16g \
    --device=/dev/davinci0 --device=/dev/davinci1 --device=/dev/davinci2 --device=/dev/davinci3 \
    --device=/dev/davinci4 --device=/dev/davinci5 --device=/dev/davinci6 --device=/dev/davinci7 \
    --device=/dev/davinci8 --device=/dev/davinci9 --device=/dev/davinci10 --device=/dev/davinci11 \
    --device=/dev/davinci12 --device=/dev/davinci13 --device=/dev/davinci14 --device=/dev/davinci15 \
    --device=/dev/davinci_manager \
    --device=/dev/hisi_hdc \
    --volume /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/sbin \
    --volume /usr/local/Ascend/driver:/usr/local/Ascend/driver \
    --volume /usr/local/Ascend/firmware:/usr/local/Ascend/firmware \
    --volume /etc/ascend_install.info:/etc/ascend_install.info \
    --volume /var/queue_schedule:/var/queue_schedule \
    --volume ~/.cache/:/root/.cache/ \
    --entrypoint=bash \
    $IMAGE
```

  </Tab>
  <Tab title="Atlas 800I A2">

```shell Command
# Choose one (uncomment the line you want):
export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/sglang:v0.5.14-cann9.0.0-910b             # Stable release
# export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/sglang:main-cann9.0.0-910b               # Daily build

docker run -it --rm --privileged --network=host --ipc=host --shm-size=16g \
    --device=/dev/davinci0 --device=/dev/davinci1 --device=/dev/davinci2 --device=/dev/davinci3 \
    --device=/dev/davinci4 --device=/dev/davinci5 --device=/dev/davinci6 --device=/dev/davinci7 \
    --device=/dev/davinci_manager \
    --device=/dev/hisi_hdc \
    --volume /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/sbin \
    --volume /usr/local/Ascend/driver:/usr/local/Ascend/driver \
    --volume /usr/local/Ascend/firmware:/usr/local/Ascend/firmware \
    --volume /etc/ascend_install.info:/etc/ascend_install.info \
    --volume /var/queue_schedule:/var/queue_schedule \
    --volume ~/.cache/:/root/.cache/ \
    --entrypoint=bash \
    $IMAGE
```

  </Tab>
</Tabs>

## Usage

The SGLang server is installed in the container by default. You can use `pip show sglang` to check the version.

### Start SGLang server

SGLang will automatically download the model from Hugging Face. If the model is already downloaded to a local path
(and has been mounted into the container), use that path directly like `--model-path /path/to/model`.

```shell Command
# Set HF_ENDPOINT to a mirror site if network is not available
export HF_ENDPOINT=https://hf-mirror.com

# Set your own HF_TOKEN to download restricted models
export HF_TOKEN=<secret>

# Start SGLang server
# It may take several minutes to download the model on the first run
sglang serve --model-path Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct --attention-backend ascend &
```

Server startup may take several minutes. Once you see output like the following, the server is running.

```log Output
INFO:     Waiting for application startup.
INFO:     Application startup complete.
INFO:     Uvicorn running on http://127.0.0.1:30000 (Press CTRL+C to quit)
The server is fired up and ready to roll!
```

### Send a test request

You can do inference using the server:

```shell Command
curl -X POST http://localhost:30000/generate \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{
        "text": "The capital of France is",
        "sampling_params": {
            "temperature": 0,
            "max_new_tokens": 16
        }
    }'
```

If the "text" field in the response contains "Paris", the server is working as expected.

### Stop server and exit container

The SGLang server is running as a background process. You can send a `SIGINT` signal to stop it.

```shell Command
SGLANG_PID=$(pgrep -f "sglang serve")
kill -SIGINT $SGLANG_PID
```

Wait a moment for the server to shut down gracefully. The output should be like the following:

```log Output
INFO:     Shutting down
INFO:     Waiting for application shutdown.
INFO:     Application shutdown complete.
INFO:     Finished server process [<SGLANG_PID>]
```

The server has now stopped. You can verify it with `ps -ef | grep sglang` — the expected output is nothing (no matching process),
then exit the container by pressing `Ctrl+D`.
