Installation

Installation#

This guide covers installing AIM Engine on a Kubernetes cluster.

Prerequisites#

Component	Minimum Version	Notes
Kubernetes	1.28+	Cluster with AMD GPU nodes
KServe	v0.16.1	See KServe Configuration
Gateway API	v1.3.0	Required for HTTP routing
cert-manager	v1.16+	Required by KServe and optional metrics TLS

Optional components:

Component	Version	Purpose
KEDA	2.18+	Autoscaling with OpenTelemetry metrics
OpenTelemetry Operator	0.101+	Custom metrics collection for autoscaling
Longhorn or similar CSI	—	ReadWriteMany storage for model caching

Install with Helm#

1. Install CRDs#

CRDs are distributed separately from the Helm chart and must be installed first:

helm install aim-engine-crds oci://docker.io/amdenterpriseai/charts/aim-engine-crds \
  --version <version> \
  --namespace aim-system \
  --create-namespace

Or from a local file:

kubectl apply -f crds.yaml
kubectl wait --for=condition=Established crd --all --timeout=60s

2. Install the Operator#

helm install aim-engine oci://docker.io/amdenterpriseai/charts/aim-engine \
  --version <version> \
  --namespace aim-system \
  --create-namespace

See Helm Chart Values for all configurable values (replicas, resources, metrics, CRD management, etc.).

3. Enable Model Discovery (Recommended)#

Automatically populate the model catalog from AMD’s published AIM container images:

helm upgrade aim-engine oci://docker.io/amdenterpriseai/charts/aim-engine \
  --version <version> \
  --namespace aim-system \
  --set clusterModelSource.enable=true

This creates an AIMClusterModelSource that discovers amdenterpriseai/aim-* images and registers them as AIMClusterModel resources. See Model Catalog for more details.

Install from Source#

Build and install from the repository:

git clone https://github.com/amd-enterprise-ai/aim-engine.git
cd aim-engine

# Generate CRDs and Helm chart
make crds
make helm

# Install CRDs
kubectl apply -f dist/crds.yaml
kubectl wait --for=condition=Established crd --all --timeout=60s

# Install the operator
helm install aim-engine ./dist/chart \
  --namespace aim-system \
  --create-namespace

Common Configuration#

Enable Cluster Runtime Defaults#

Set up cluster-wide routing and storage defaults:

helm upgrade aim-engine oci://docker.io/amdenterpriseai/charts/aim-engine \
  --namespace aim-system \
  --set clusterRuntimeConfig.enable=true \
  --set clusterRuntimeConfig.spec.routing.enabled=true \
  --set clusterRuntimeConfig.spec.routing.gatewayRef.name=aim-gateway \
  --set clusterRuntimeConfig.spec.routing.gatewayRef.namespace=kgateway-system

See Helm Chart Values for all available options.

Verify Installation#

Check that the operator is running:

kubectl get pods -n aim-system

Expected output:

NAME                                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
aim-engine-controller-manager-xxxxx-yyyyy         1/1     Running   0          30s

Verify CRDs are installed:

kubectl get crds | grep aim.eai.amd.com

Uninstalling#

# Remove the operator
helm uninstall aim-engine -n aim-system

# Remove CRDs
helm uninstall aim-engine-crds -n aim-system

!!! warning Uninstalling the CRDs release deletes all AIM custom resources from the cluster. Remove the operator first, then the CRDs only if you want a full cleanup.

Next Steps#

Quickstart — Deploy your first inference service
KServe Configuration — Configure KServe for AIM Engine
Helm Chart Values — Full reference for all chart values