NVIDIA NIM Skill

Comprehensive guide for deploying GPU-accelerated AI inference microservices with NVIDIA NIM™. NIM provides containers to self-host pretrained and customized AI models across clouds, data centers, and RTX™ AI PCs with industry-standard APIs.

When to Use This Skill

This skill should be triggered when you:

Deployment & Infrastructure:

• Need to deploy AI models with GPU acceleration (TensorRT, vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT-LLM)
• Want to self-host inference microservices on NVIDIA GPUs
• Are setting up AI infrastructure on clouds, data centers, or RTX workstations
• Need to containerize AI models for production deployment

Model Integration:

• Working with LLMs, vision models, or other foundation models
• Integrating pretrained or fine-tuned models into applications
• Need industry-standard API endpoints (OpenAI-compatible, REST)
• Building RAG pipelines, agentic AI workflows, or chatbots

Performance Optimization:

• Optimizing inference latency and throughput
• Need high-performance model serving on NVIDIA GPUs
• Working with model quantization or optimization
• Scaling AI workloads on Kubernetes

Specific Use Cases:

• "Deploy Llama 3 on my GPU cluster"
• "Set up inference endpoints for custom models"
• "Build AI agents with NVIDIA infrastructure"
• "Optimize model inference performance"
• "Create self-hosted AI applications with observability"

Key Concepts

NVIDIA NIM Architecture

NIM (NVIDIA Inference Microservices) are containerized microservices that provide:

• Pre-optimized Models: Accelerated with TensorRT, vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT-LLM
• Industry-Standard APIs: OpenAI-compatible REST endpoints
• GPU Optimization: Tailored for specific NVIDIA GPU architectures
• Self-Hosting: Deploy anywhere with NVIDIA acceleration

Core Components

• NIM Container: Docker/Kubernetes-ready inference service
• Inference Engines: TensorRT-LLM, vLLM, SGLang for different model types
• API Layer: REST/gRPC endpoints with OpenAI compatibility
• Observability: Built-in metrics for monitoring and dashboards

Deployment Targets

• Cloud: AWS, Azure, GCP with NVIDIA GPUs
• Data Center: On-premise GPU clusters
• Edge: RTX AI PCs and workstations
• Kubernetes: Helm charts for orchestration

Supported Models

• LLMs: Llama, Mistral, Gemma, Falcon, and community fine-tunes
• Vision Models: Image generation, classification, detection
• Custom Models: Fine-tuned models on your data
• Model Catalog: Access thousands of models from NVIDIA and partners

Quick Reference

1. Deploy NIM Container with Single Command

# Deploy a Llama 3 inference microservice
docker run --gpus all \
  -e NGC_API_KEY=$NGC_API_KEY \
  -p 8000:8000 \
  nvcr.io/nvidia/nim/llama-3-8b-instruct:latest

Launches a GPU-accelerated Llama 3 inference service on port 8000

2. Call NIM API Endpoint (OpenAI-Compatible)

# Use NIM API like OpenAI
import openai

client = openai.OpenAI(
    base_url="http://localhost:8000/v1",
    api_key="not-used"  # NIM handles auth differently
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="llama-3-8b-instruct",
    messages=[
        {"role": "user", "content": "Explain quantum computing"}
    ],
    temperature=0.7,
    max_tokens=512
)

print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Standard OpenAI SDK works seamlessly with NIM endpoints

3. Deploy NIM on Kubernetes with Helm

# Add NVIDIA Helm repository
helm repo add nvidia https://helm.ngc.nvidia.com/nvidia

# Deploy NIM microservice
helm install my-nim nvidia/nim \
  --set image.repository=nvcr.io/nvidia/nim/llama-3-8b-instruct \
  --set image.tag=latest \
  --set replicaCount=3 \
  --set resources.limits.nvidia.com/gpu=1

Scale NIM inference across Kubernetes cluster with GPU allocation

4. Access NIM via REST API

# Direct REST API call to NIM
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "llama-3-8b-instruct",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello, world!"}],
    "temperature": 0.5,
    "max_tokens": 100
  }'

REST endpoint for language-agnostic integration

5. Deploy Custom Fine-Tuned Model

# Deploy your custom fine-tuned model with NIM
docker run --gpus all \
  -e NGC_API_KEY=$NGC_API_KEY \
  -e MODEL_PATH=/models/my-custom-model \
  -v /path/to/models:/models \
  -p 8000:8000 \
  nvcr.io/nvidia/nim/base-llm:latest

NIM supports custom models fine-tuned on your data

6. RAG Pipeline with NIM

# Building retrieval-augmented generation with NIM
from langchain.llms import OpenAI
from langchain.chains import RetrievalQA
from langchain.vectorstores import FAISS

# Point LangChain to NIM endpoint
llm = OpenAI(
    base_url="http://localhost:8000/v1",
    api_key="not-used",
    model="llama-3-8b-instruct"
)

# Create RAG chain with NIM-powered LLM
qa_chain = RetrievalQA.from_chain_type(
    llm=llm,
    retriever=vectorstore.as_retriever(),
    chain_type="stuff"
)

answer = qa_chain.run("What are the key features of NIM?")

Integrate NIM into RAG workflows with frameworks like LangChain

7. Configure NIM for Multi-GPU Setup

# docker-compose.yml for multi-GPU NIM deployment
version: '3'
services:
  nim-service:
    image: nvcr.io/nvidia/nim/llama-3-70b-instruct:latest
    deploy:
      resources:
        reservations:
          devices:
            - driver: nvidia
              count: 4  # Use 4 GPUs
              capabilities: [gpu]
    environment:
      - NGC_API_KEY=${NGC_API_KEY}
      - TENSOR_PARALLEL_SIZE=4
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"

Leverage multiple GPUs for large model inference

8. Monitor NIM with Observability Metrics

# Access built-in metrics from NIM
import requests

metrics = requests.get("http://localhost:8000/metrics")
print(metrics.text)

# Prometheus-compatible metrics include:
# - nim_inference_requests_total
# - nim_inference_duration_seconds
# - nim_gpu_utilization_percent
# - nim_throughput_tokens_per_second

Built-in Prometheus metrics for dashboarding and monitoring

9. Build AI Agent with NVIDIA Blueprints

# Use NVIDIA AI Blueprints with NIM
from nvidia_blueprints import AgentBlueprint

# Initialize blueprint with NIM endpoint
agent = AgentBlueprint(
    nim_endpoint="http://localhost:8000/v1",
    model="llama-3-8b-instruct",
    tools=["web_search", "calculator", "code_executor"]
)

# Execute agentic workflow
result = agent.run(
    task="Research and summarize recent AI developments"
)

Predefined AI workflows using NIM as inference backend

10. Deploy NIM on Hugging Face Dedicated Endpoints

# Alternative: Use Hugging Face dedicated endpoints
from huggingface_hub import InferenceClient

client = InferenceClient(
    model="nvidia/llama-3-8b-nim",
    token=hf_token
)

response = client.text_generation(
    "Explain NVIDIA NIM",
    max_new_tokens=200
)

Managed NIM deployment via Hugging Face cloud infrastructure

Reference Files

This skill includes comprehensive documentation in references/:

microservices.md

Primary documentation for NVIDIA NIM architecture and capabilities:

• Complete overview of NIM inference microservices
• How NIM works: architecture, engines, and optimization
• Deployment guides for clouds, data centers, and RTX systems
• API documentation and integration examples
• Performance optimization with TensorRT, vLLM, SGLang
• Model catalog and customization options
• Kubernetes scaling and Helm charts
• Observability and monitoring setup

Best for:

• Understanding NIM fundamentals
• Deployment planning and architecture
• Performance tuning strategies
• API integration patterns

other.md

Additional resources and references:

• NVIDIA Build catalog (build.nvidia.com)
• Model browser and filters
• AI Blueprints and workflow templates
• Agent blueprints for agentic AI

Best for:

• Discovering available models
• Finding pre-built AI workflows
• Exploring agent architectures

Working with This Skill

For Beginners

Start here:

1. Read references/microservices.md "How It Works" section
2. Try the Quick Reference examples #1-2 (basic deployment and API calls)
3. Experiment with different models from the NVIDIA catalog
4. Learn about NIM container structure and APIs

First Steps:

• Get NGC API key from NVIDIA
• Install Docker with NVIDIA Container Toolkit
• Deploy your first NIM container locally
• Test with simple API calls

For Application Developers

Focus on:

• Quick Reference examples #2, #4, #6 (API integration patterns)
• OpenAI compatibility for seamless migration
• RAG pipeline integration with LangChain/LlamaIndex
• Building agents and chatbots with NIM endpoints

Key Skills:

• REST API integration
• Handling streaming responses
• Error handling and retry logic
• Authentication and security

For MLOps/Infrastructure Engineers

Advanced topics:

• Quick Reference examples #3, #7, #8 (Kubernetes, multi-GPU, monitoring)
• Helm chart customization for production
• Multi-GPU tensor parallelism configuration
• Prometheus metrics and observability
• Autoscaling strategies on Kubernetes
• Model versioning and deployment pipelines

Production Considerations:

• GPU resource allocation and limits
• High-availability deployment patterns
• Load balancing across NIM instances
• Monitoring and alerting setup

For Model Developers

Custom Models:

• Quick Reference example #5 (custom model deployment)
• Fine-tuning workflows with NVIDIA tools
• Model optimization with TensorRT
• Quantization for inference efficiency
• Benchmarking and performance validation

Integration Path:

1. Fine-tune model on your data
2. Export to compatible format (GGUF, safetensors)
3. Package with NIM base container
4. Deploy and validate performance
5. Optimize with TensorRT-LLM if needed

Common Workflows

Workflow 1: Deploy Production-Ready LLM Service

1. Choose model from NVIDIA catalog → references/microservices.md
2. Deploy with Kubernetes Helm chart → Quick Reference #3
3. Configure multi-GPU if needed → Quick Reference #7
4. Set up monitoring → Quick Reference #8
5. Test with OpenAI-compatible client → Quick Reference #2
6. Scale based on metrics

Workflow 2: Build RAG Application

1. Deploy NIM inference endpoint → Quick Reference #1
2. Integrate with vector database (Milvus, Pinecone)
3. Connect via LangChain → Quick Reference #6
4. Implement retrieval pipeline
5. Add observability and error handling

Workflow 3: Create AI Agent System

1. Use NVIDIA AI Blueprint → Quick Reference #9
2. Deploy NIM for reasoning engine
3. Configure tool integrations (search, APIs)
4. Implement agentic workflow
5. Monitor agent performance

Performance Optimization Tips

Inference Speed

• Use TensorRT-LLM for NVIDIA GPUs (up to 8x faster)
• Enable tensor parallelism for large models (>70B)
• Use quantization (INT8, FP8) for memory efficiency
• Batch requests for higher throughput

Resource Utilization

• Monitor GPU memory with NIM metrics
• Adjust max_batch_size for your workload
• Use appropriate GPU SKU (H100, A100, L40S, RTX)
• Enable KV cache optimization for repeated queries

Scaling Strategy

• Horizontal scaling with Kubernetes for high QPS
• Vertical scaling (more GPUs) for larger models
• Load balancing across NIM instances
• Auto-scaling based on queue depth and latency

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

Container won't start:

• Verify NGC_API_KEY is set correctly
• Check GPU availability: nvidia-smi
• Ensure NVIDIA Container Toolkit is installed

Out of memory errors:

• Reduce model size or use quantized version
• Increase GPU memory or use multi-GPU
• Adjust batch size and context length limits

Slow inference:

• Check GPU utilization in metrics
• Verify using optimized engine (TensorRT-LLM)
• Enable tensor parallelism for large models
• Reduce precision (FP16, INT8)

API compatibility issues:

• Verify OpenAI SDK version compatibility
• Check endpoint URL format (/v1/chat/completions)
• Review NIM logs for error details

Additional Resources

NVIDIA Documentation

• NIM Documentation: Official guides and reference
• NGC Catalog: Browse available NIM containers
• TensorRT-LLM: Advanced optimization engine
• AI Blueprints: Pre-built workflow templates

Community & Support

• NVIDIA Developer Forums
• GitHub examples and integrations
• Deployment guides for major cloud providers
• Performance benchmarking results

Related Technologies

• TensorRT: NVIDIA inference optimization SDK
• Triton Inference Server: Production deployment platform
• CUDA: GPU computing foundation
• cuDNN: Deep learning primitives

Notes

• NIM provides OpenAI-compatible APIs for easy migration
• Pre-optimized for specific GPU architectures (Hopper, Ada, Ampere)
• Supports thousands of models: LLMs, vision, speech, multimodal
• Enterprise support available through NVIDIA AI Enterprise
• Regular updates with latest model releases and optimizations

Getting Started Checklist

• Obtain NGC API key from NVIDIA
• Install NVIDIA Container Toolkit
• Deploy first NIM container locally (Quick Reference #1)
• Test API endpoint (Quick Reference #2 or #4)
• Explore model catalog at build.nvidia.com
• Review observability metrics (Quick Reference #8)
• Plan production deployment (Kubernetes/Helm)
• Implement monitoring and alerting
• Optimize for your workload (GPU selection, batching)
• Build your AI application!