Installation

Installation#

There are two pieces:

  • the TIRx compiler (tvm.tirx), which ships inside Apache TVM — this is the authoring, IR, lowering, and backend infrastructure. Compiling or running for a particular target also requires a TVM build with that target enabled;

  • the optional kernel library (tirx-kernels), a collection of ready-made kernels and benchmark infrastructure built with TIRx.

Requirements#

  • Python ≥ 3.10.

  • For the CUDA programming guide and bundled kernels: a CUDA-enabled TVM build, an NVIDIA driver, and a compatible CUDA toolkit. The bundled kernels target Blackwell (sm_100a); TIRx itself also supports other target backends.

Install the TIRx compiler#

Install the Apache TVM wheel (the TIRx compiler is the tvm.tirx module):

pip install apache-tvm

The wheel is enough to inspect and author TIRx IR. Some CUDA workflows also need NVIDIA’s Python CUDA bindings, available through apache-tvm[cuda]. That extra does not enable CUDA in the TVM library and does not install a driver or toolkit. To compile and run the CUDA examples, use a TVM build configured with USE_CUDA=ON; see install TVM from source.

Verify:

python -c "import tvm, tvm.tirx; print(tvm.__version__)"

Install the kernel library (optional)#

Install the latest tirx-kernels release from PyPI:

pip install tirx-kernels

Or install a checkout for development:

git clone https://github.com/mlc-ai/tirx-kernels
cd tirx-kernels
pip install -e .

Apache TVM and PyTorch are externally managed runtime/compiler dependencies; installing tirx-kernels does not install them. Put a TIRx-enabled TVM on PYTHONPATH and use a CUDA build of PyTorch matching the system. Individual correctness tests and reference baselines need additional upstream projects. For a source checkout, install their pinned, mutually compatible revisions with:

python scripts/install_reference_dependencies.py

The kernel registry and reference dependency set evolve independently of TVM. Use python -m tirx_kernels.registry --format json for the installed kernel list, and consult the tirx-kernels README and reference-dependencies.json in that repository for current optional requirements.

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