--- title: jakmro sdk: static pinned: true --- # Cactus Logo [![Docs][docs-shield]][docs-url] [![Website][website-shield]][website-url] [![GitHub][github-shield]][github-url] [![HuggingFace][hf-shield]][hf-url] [![Reddit][reddit-shield]][reddit-url] [![Blog][blog-shield]][blog-url] A hybrid low-latency energy-efficient AI engine for mobile devices & wearables. ``` ┌─────────────────┐ │ Cactus Engine │ ←── OpenAI-compatible APIs for all major languages └─────────────────┘ Chat, vision, STT, RAG, tool call, cloud handoff │ ┌─────────────────┐ │ Cactus Graph │ ←── Zero-copy computation graph (PyTorch for mobile) └─────────────────┘ Custom models, optimised for RAM & quantisation │ ┌─────────────────┐ │ Cactus Kernels │ ←── ARM SIMD kernels (Apple, Snapdragon, Exynos, etc) └─────────────────┘ Custom attention, KV-cache quant, chunked prefill ``` ## Quick Demo - Step 1: `brew install cactus-compute/cactus/cactus` - Step 2: `cactus transcribe` or `cactus run` ## Cactus Engine ```cpp #include cactus.h cactus_model_t model = cactus_init( "path/to/weight/folder", "path to txt or dir of txts for auto-rag", ); const char* messages = R"([ {"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant."}, {"role": "user", "content": "My name is Henry Ndubuaku"} ])"; const char* options = R"({ "max_tokens": 50, "stop_sequences": ["<|im_end|>"] })"; char response[4096]; int result = cactus_complete( model, // model handle messages, // JSON chat messages response, // response buffer sizeof(response), // buffer size options, // generation options nullptr, // tools JSON nullptr, // streaming callback nullptr // user data ); ``` Example response from Gemma3-270m ```json { "success": true, // generation succeeded "error": null, // error details if failed "cloud_handoff": false, // true if cloud model used "response": "Hi there!", "function_calls": [], // parsed tool calls "confidence": 0.8193, // model confidence "time_to_first_token_ms": 45.23, "total_time_ms": 163.67, "prefill_tps": 1621.89, "decode_tps": 168.42, "ram_usage_mb": 245.67, "prefill_tokens": 28, "decode_tokens": 50, "total_tokens": 78 } ``` ## Cactus Graph ```cpp #include cactus.h CactusGraph graph; auto a = graph.input({2, 3}, Precision::FP16); auto b = graph.input({3, 4}, Precision::INT8); auto x1 = graph.matmul(a, b, false); auto x2 = graph.transpose(x1); auto result = graph.matmul(b, x2, true); float a_data[6] = {1.1f, 2.3f, 3.4f, 4.2f, 5.7f, 6.8f}; float b_data[12] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12}; graph.set_input(a, a_data, Precision::FP16); graph.set_input(b, b_data, Precision::INT8); graph.execute(); void* output_data = graph.get_output(result); graph.hard_reset(); ``` ## API & SDK References | Reference | Language | Description | |-----------|----------|-------------| | [Engine API](cactus_engine.md) | C | Chat completion, streaming, tool calling, transcription, embeddings, RAG, vision, VAD, vector index, cloud handoff | | [Graph API](cactus_graph.md) | C++ | Tensor operations, matrix multiplication, attention, normalization, activation functions | | [Python SDK](/python/) | Python | Mac, Linux | | [Swift SDK](/apple/) | Swift | iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, Android | | [Kotlin SDK](/android/) | Kotlin | Android, iOS (via KMP) | | [Flutter SDK](/flutter/) | Dart | iOS, macOS, Android | | [Rust SDK](/rust/) | Rust | Mac, Linux | | [React Native](https://github.com/cactus-compute/cactus-react-native) | JavaScript | iOS, Android | ## Benchmarks - All weights INT4 quantised - LFM: 1k-prefill / 100-decode, values are prefill tps / decode tps - LFM-VL: 256px input, values are latency / decode tps - Parakeet: 30s audio input, values are latency / decode tps - Missing latency = no NPU support yet | Device | LFM 1.2B | LFMVL 1.6B | Parakeet 1.1B | RAM | |--------|----------|------------|---------------|-----| | Mac M4 Pro | 582/100 | 0.2s/98 | 0.1s/900k+ | 76MB | | iPad/Mac M3 | 350/60 | 0.3s/69 | 0.3s/800k+ | 70MB | | iPhone 17 Pro | 327/48 | 0.3s/48 | 0.3s/300k+ | 108MB | | iPhone 13 Mini | 148/34 | 0.3s/35 | 0.7s/90k+ | 1GB | | Galaxy S25 Ultra | 255/37 | -/34 | -/250k+ | 1.5GB | | Pixel 6a | 70/15 | -/15 | -/17k+ | 1GB | | Galaxy A17 5G | 32/10 | -/11 | -/40k+ | 727MB | | CMF Phone 2 Pro | - | - | - | - | | Raspberry Pi 5 | 69/11 | 13.3s/11 | 4.5s/180k+ | 869MB | ## Roadmap | Date | Status | Milestone | |------|--------|-----------| | Sep 2025 | Done | Released v1 | | Oct 2025 | Done | Chunked prefill, KVCache Quant (2x prefill) | | Nov 2025 | Done | Cactus Attention (10 & 1k prefill = same decode) | | Dec 2025 | Done | Team grows to +6 Research Engineers | | Jan 2026 | Done | Apple NPU/RAM, 5-11x faster iOS/Mac | | Feb 2026 | Done | Hybrid inference, INT4, lossless Quant (1.5x) | | Mar 2026 | Coming | Qualcomm/Google NPUs, 5-11x faster Android | | Apr 2026 | Coming | Mediatek/Exynos NPUs, Cactus@ICLR | | May 2026 | Coming | Kernel→C++, Graph/Engine→Rust, Mac GPU & VR | | Jun 2026 | Coming | Torch/JAX model transpilers | | Jul 2026 | Coming | Wearables optimisations, Cactus@ICML | | Aug 2026 | Coming | Orchestration | | Sep 2026 | Coming | Full Cactus paper, chip manufacturer partners | ## Using this repo ``` ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ Step 0: if on Linux (Ubuntu/Debian) │ │ sudo apt-get install python3 python3-venv python3-pip cmake │ │ build-essential libcurl4-openssl-dev │ │ │ │ Step 1: clone and setup │ │ git clone https://github.com/cactus-compute/cactus && cd cactus │ │ source ./setup │ │ │ │ Step 2: use the commands │ │──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│ │ │ │ cactus auth manage Cloud API key │ │ --status show key status │ │ --clear remove saved key │ │ │ │ cactus run opens playground (auto downloads) │ │ --precision INT4|INT8|FP16 quantization (default: INT4) │ │ --token HF token (gated models) │ │ --reconvert force reconversion from source │ │ │ │ cactus transcribe [model] live mic transcription (parakeet-1.1b) │ │ --file transcribe file instead of mic │ │ --precision INT4|INT8|FP16 quantization (default: INT4) │ │ --token HF token (gated models) │ │ --reconvert force reconversion from source │ │ │ │ cactus download downloads model to ./weights │ │ --precision INT4|INT8|FP16 quantization (default: INT4) │ │ --token HuggingFace API token │ │ --reconvert force reconversion from source │ │ │ │ cactus convert [dir] convert model, supports LoRA merge │ │ --precision INT4|INT8|FP16 quantization (default: INT4) │ │ --lora LoRA adapter to merge │ │ --token HuggingFace API token │ │ │ │ cactus build build for ARM → build/libcactus.a │ │ --apple Apple (iOS/macOS) │ │ --android Android │ │ --flutter Flutter (all platforms) │ │ --python shared lib for Python FFI │ │ │ │ cactus test run unit tests and benchmarks │ │ --model default: LFM2-VL-450M │ │ --transcribe_model default: moonshine-base │ │ --benchmark use larger models │ │ --precision INT4|INT8|FP16 regenerate weights with precision │ │ --reconvert force reconversion from source │ │ --no-rebuild skip building library │ │ --only specific test (llm, vlm, stt, etc) │ │ --ios run on connected iPhone │ │ --android run on connected Android │ │ │ │ cactus clean remove all build artifacts │ │ cactus --help show all commands and flags │ │ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ``` ## Maintaining Organisations 1. [Cactus Compute, Inc. (YC S25)](https://cactuscompute.com/) 2. [UCLA's BruinAI](https://bruinai.org/) 3. [Char (YC S25)](https://char.com/) 4. [Yale's AI Society](https://www.yale-ai.org/team) 5. [National Unoversity of Singapore's AI Society](https://www.nusaisociety.org/) 6. [UC Irvine's AI@UCI](https://aiclub.ics.uci.edu/) 7. [Imperial College's AI Society](https://www.imperialcollegeunion.org/csp/1391) 8. [University of Pennsylvania's AI@Penn](https://ai-at-penn-main-105.vercel.app/) 9. [University of Michigan Ann-Arbor MSAIL](https://msail.github.io/) 10. [University of Colorado Boulder's AI Club](https://www.cuaiclub.org/) ## Citation If you use Cactus in your research, please cite it as follows: ```bibtex @software{cactus, title = {Cactus: AI Inference Engine for Phones & Wearables}, author = {Ndubuaku, Henry and Cactus Team}, url = {https://github.com/cactus-compute/cactus}, year = {2025} } ``` **N/B:** Scroll all the way up and click the shields link for resources! [docs-shield]: https://img.shields.io/badge/Docs-555?style=for-the-badge&logo=readthedocs&logoColor=white [docs-url]: https://cactus-compute.github.io/cactus/ [website-shield]: https://img.shields.io/badge/Website-555?style=for-the-badge&logo=safari&logoColor=white [website-url]: https://cactuscompute.com/ [github-shield]: https://img.shields.io/badge/GitHub-555?style=for-the-badge&logo=github&logoColor=white [github-url]: https://github.com/cactus-compute/cactus [hf-shield]: https://img.shields.io/badge/HuggingFace-555?style=for-the-badge&logo=huggingface&logoColor=white [hf-url]: https://huggingface.co/Cactus-Compute [reddit-shield]: https://img.shields.io/badge/Reddit-555?style=for-the-badge&logo=reddit&logoColor=white [reddit-url]: https://www.reddit.com/r/cactuscompute/ [blog-shield]: https://img.shields.io/badge/Blog-555?style=for-the-badge&logo=hashnode&logoColor=white [blog-url]: https://cactus-compute.github.io/cactus/blog/README/