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Download any model from HuggingFace Hub to a cloud GPU and serve it behind an OpenAI-compatible API.

1. Deploy an instance

2. Install tools

3. Authenticate (for gated models)

Some models (Llama, Gemma, Mistral) require HuggingFace access tokens:

4. Download a model

Download to /workspace/ so the model persists if you attach a volume:

5. Serve with vLLM

Test it:

Persist models with a volume

Avoid re-downloading large models by using a persistent volume:
Models at /workspace/models/ persist across instance restarts.

Download specific file types

Tips

  • For gated models, create a token at huggingface.co/settings/tokens with read scope.
  • Cloud download speeds are typically 1-5 GB/min — much faster than home connections.
  • A 70B FP16 model is ~140 GB. An FP8 version is ~70 GB. Check VRAM before downloading.

Cleanup