kernels/pr_596/en/installation.md

# Installation

Install the `kernels` package with `pip` (requires `torch>=2.5` and CUDA):

```bash
pip install kernels
```

or with `uv`

```bash
uv pip install kernels
```

or if you want the latest version from the `main` branch:

```bash
pip install "kernels[benchmark] @ git+https://github.com/huggingface/kernels#subdirectory=kernels"
```

> [!IMPORTANT]
> On Windows, we recommend using the Linux version of Torch through
> [WSL 2](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install), since
> many more kernels support Linux. If you want to use GPU acceleration,
> check out the [CUDA on WSL](https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/wsl-user-guide/index.html#getting-started-with-cuda-on-wsl-2)
> and [PyTorch with DirectML on WSL 2](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai/directml/pytorch-wsl)
> guides.

> [!IMPORTANT]
> We strongly recommend not using a free-threaded Python build yet.
> These builds are not only experimental, but do not support the stable ABI
> on Python versions before 3.15. Kernels are compiled with the stable ABI
> to support a wide range of Python versions.