c40d4171bc
### What this PR does / why we need it?
The deepseek w4a8 weights we supported before were in mindie-format
format. It uses int8 to represent int4, so the weight size is similar to
w8a8, and we need to do a few extra steps to make vllm-ascend load it
normally.
Now we can directly use the new weight format, which uses two int4 packs
to save the weight, the weight size is reduced, and there is no need to
do many extra operations to directly use it on vllm-ascend, but we are
also compatible with the weights of the previous mindie format.
The weight changes in the new version:
1. The weight is packed （2 int4 pack to int8）
2. The bias required in the apply method is directly generated by
modelslim
### Does this PR introduce _any_ user-facing change?
no
### How was this patch tested?
Adding ut case in `tests/ut/quantization/test_w4a8_dynamic.py`
#### 1.How to get weights using Modelslim
##### Installation steps
we can use the branch br_release_MindStudio_8.1.RC2_TR5_20260624
git clone -b br_release_MindStudio_8.1.RC2_TR5_20260624
https://gitee.com/ascend/msit.git
cd msit/msmodelslim
bash install.sh
##### Generate w4a8 weights
cd /example/DeepSeek
Command reference: msmodelslim/example/DeepSeek/README.md Execute the
[pre-check](https://gitee.com/ascend/msit/blob/br_release_MindStudio_8.1.RC2_TR5_20260624/msmodelslim/example/DeepSeek/README.md#%E8%BF%90%E8%A1%8C%E5%89%8D%E5%BF%85%E6%A3%80)
and [DeepSeek-R1 w4a8 mix
quantization](https://gitee.com/ascend/msit/blob/br_release_MindStudio_8.1.RC2_TR5_20260624/msmodelslim/example/DeepSeek/README.md#deepseek-r1-w4a8-%E6%B7%B7%E5%90%88%E9%87%8F%E5%8C%96%E5%89%8D%E4%B8%89%E5%B1%82-mlpw8a8-dynamic-%E9%87%8F%E5%8C%96mla%E5%85%B1%E4%BA%AB%E4%B8%93%E5%AE%B6w8a8%E9%87%8F%E5%8C%96%E8%B7%AF%E7%94%B1%E4%B8%93%E5%AE%B6w4a8-dynamic%E9%87%8F%E5%8C%96)
chapter
Reference command：python3 quant_deepseek_w4a8.py --model_path {Original
weight path} --save_path {Generate weight path}
##### Adapt to vllm-ascend
Modification in `config.json`：`"model_type":deepseekv2` is changed to
`"model_type":deepseek_v3`;
#### 2.How to run w4a8
##### a.How to run eager mode
export VLLM_ASCEND_MLA_PA=1
python -m vllm.entrypoints.openai.api_server --model=$1
--trust-remote-code -tp $2 -dp $3 --enable_expert_parallel
--quantization ascend --port $4 --max-model-len $5 --max-num-seqs $6
--enforce-eager
eg: python -m vllm.entrypoints.openai.api_server
--model=/weightpath/w4a8_4_layer --trust-remote-code -tp 4 -dp 4
--enable_expert_parallel --quantization ascend --port 8002
--max-model-len 5120 --max-num-seqs 128 --enforce-eager
##### b.How to run graph mode
export HCCL_BUFFSIZE=1024
python -m vllm.entrypoints.openai.api_server --model=$1
--trust-remote-code -tp $2 -dp $3 --enable_expert_parallel
--quantization ascend --port $4 --max-model-len $5
--additional_config='{"ascend_scheduler_config":{"enabled":true},"torchair_graph_config":{"enabled":true}}'
eg: python -m vllm.entrypoints.openai.api_server
--model=/weight/dsr1_w4a8_vllm --trust-remote-code -tp 4 -dp 4
--enable_expert_parallel --quantization ascend --port 8002
--max-model-len 5120
--additional_config='{"ascend_scheduler_config":{"enabled":true},"torchair_graph_config":{"enabled":true}}'
- vLLM version: v0.10.0
- vLLM main:
103f1ec8d3
---------
Signed-off-by: Wang Kunpeng <1289706727@qq.com>
vLLM Ascend Plugin
| About Ascend | Documentation | #sig-ascend | Users Forum | Weekly Meeting |
English | 中文
Latest News 🔥
- [2025/06] User stories page is now live! It kicks off with LLaMA-Factory/verl//TRL/GPUStack to demonstrate how vLLM Ascend assists Ascend users in enhancing their experience across fine-tuning, evaluation, reinforcement learning (RL), and deployment scenarios.
- [2025/06] Contributors page is now live! All contributions deserve to be recorded, thanks for all contributors.
- [2025/05] We've released first official version v0.7.3! We collaborated with the vLLM community to publish a blog post sharing our practice: Introducing vLLM Hardware Plugin, Best Practice from Ascend NPU.
- [2025/03] We hosted the vLLM Beijing Meetup with vLLM team! Please find the meetup slides here.
- [2025/02] vLLM community officially created vllm-project/vllm-ascend repo for running vLLM seamlessly on the Ascend NPU.
- [2024/12] We are working with the vLLM community to support [RFC]: Hardware pluggable.
Overview
vLLM Ascend (vllm-ascend) is a community maintained hardware plugin for running vLLM seamlessly on the Ascend NPU.
It is the recommended approach for supporting the Ascend backend within the vLLM community. It adheres to the principles outlined in the [RFC]: Hardware pluggable, providing a hardware-pluggable interface that decouples the integration of the Ascend NPU with vLLM.
By using vLLM Ascend plugin, popular open-source models, including Transformer-like, Mixture-of-Expert, Embedding, Multi-modal LLMs can run seamlessly on the Ascend NPU.
Prerequisites
- Hardware: Atlas 800I A2 Inference series, Atlas A2 Training series, Atlas 800I A3 Inference series, Atlas A3 Training series, Atlas 300I Duo (Experimental)
- OS: Linux
- Software:
- Python >= 3.9, < 3.12
- CANN >= 8.2.rc1
- PyTorch >= 2.7.1, torch-npu >= 2.7.1.dev20250724
- vLLM (the same version as vllm-ascend)
Getting Started
Please use the following recommended versions to get started quickly:
| Version | Release type | Doc |
|---|---|---|
| v0.10.0rc1 | Latest release candidate | QuickStart and Installation for more details |
| v0.9.1rc2 | Next stable release | QuickStart and Installation for more details |
| v0.7.3.post1 | Latest stable version | QuickStart and Installation for more details |
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING for more details, which is a step-by-step guide to help you set up development environment, build and test.
We welcome and value any contributions and collaborations:
- Please let us know if you encounter a bug by filing an issue
- Please use User forum for usage questions and help.
Branch
vllm-ascend has main branch and dev branch.
- main: main branch，corresponds to the vLLM main branch, and is continuously monitored for quality through Ascend CI.
- vX.Y.Z-dev: development branch, created with part of new releases of vLLM. For example,
v0.7.3-devis the dev branch for vLLMv0.7.3version.
Below is maintained branches:
| Branch | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| main | Maintained | CI commitment for vLLM main branch and vLLM 0.10.x branch |
| v0.7.1-dev | Unmaintained | Only doc fixed is allowed |
| v0.7.3-dev | Maintained | CI commitment for vLLM 0.7.3 version, only bug fix is allowed and no new release tag any more. |
| v0.9.1-dev | Maintained | CI commitment for vLLM 0.9.1 version |
Please refer to Versioning policy for more details.
Weekly Meeting
- vLLM Ascend Weekly Meeting: https://tinyurl.com/vllm-ascend-meeting
- Wednesday, 15:00 - 16:00 (UTC+8, Convert to your timezone)
License
Apache License 2.0, as found in the LICENSE file.