Installation Description

This document describes how to efficiently install the Ascend NPU driver and firmware and the Compute Architecture for Neural Networks (CANN) software on Ascend training devices. Table 1 describes the software.

**Table 1** Ascend software
Software Type	Description
Ascend NPU Firmware	The firmware contains the OS, power component, and power consumption management control software of an Ascend AI Processor. It is used for model calculation, processor startup control, and power consumption control that are loaded to the Ascend AI Processor.
Ascend NPU Driver	The driver is deployed on an Ascend server and functions similar to the NVIDIA driver. It manages and queries the Ascend AI Processor and provides processor control and resource allocation interfaces for the upper-layer CANN software.
CANN	CANN is deployed on an Ascend server and functions similar to the NVIDIA CUDA. It includes the Runtime, operator package (OPP), graph engine, and media data processing components. It uses Ascend Computing Language (AscendCL) to provide APIs for external systems to enable functions such as device management, context management, stream management, memory management, model loading and execution, operator loading and execution, and media data processing. This helps developers develop and run AI services on Ascend software and hardware platforms. The CANN software packages include the Toolkit (development kit), NNAE (deep learning engine), NNRT (offline inference engine), and TFPlugin (TensorFlow framework plugin). The functions of each software package are as follows: Toolkit: supports training and inference services, model conversion, and operator/application/model development and build. NNAE: supports training and inference services, and model conversion. NNRT: supports only inference services. TFPlugin: interconnects with the TensorFlow framework to help it call the underlying CANN APIs to run training services.

Installation Scenario

This document describes how to set up a training environment in container scenarios. You only need to install the hardware, OS, driver, firmware, and Docker. Huawei Ascend Hub provides container images that contain the CANN software (in the training environment, NNAE and TFPlugin are used) and the TensorFlow framework, helping you quickly start container-based training.

Figure 1 Installation scenario

Hardware Requirements

Table 2 lists the Ascend training devices that can be used as the training environments of Modelzoo models.

**Table 2** Hardware requirements
Hardware Type	Hardware Model
Training Server	Atlas 800 training server (model 9000) Atlas 800 training server (model 9010) Atlas 900 PoD (model 9000)
Training Card	Atlas 300T training card (model 9000)