Hugging Face Accelerate - AI Training Tools Tool
Overview
Hugging Face Accelerate is an open-source Python library that makes it straightforward to launch, train, and run PyTorch models across a wide range of hardware and distributed setups. Instead of rewriting training loops for each environment, Accelerate provides a small set of abstractions (notably the Accelerator class and a CLI) that handle device placement, multi-GPU / multi-node configuration, and common performance techniques such as automatic mixed precision — including fp16, bf16 and fp8 modes — with minimal changes to existing code. It focuses on reducing engineering overhead while keeping full interoperability with PyTorch, Transformers, DeepSpeed, and PyTorch FSDP workflows. Accelerate is designed for practical research and production workflows: it supports single-GPU, multi-GPU (DataParallel/DistributedDataParallel), TPU usage, Apple Silicon MPS, and integrates with DeepSpeed ZeRO and PyTorch Fully Sharded Data Parallel (FSDP) to enable large-model training with memory efficiency. Typical developer workflows use the accelerate CLI (accelerate config, accelerate launch) for environment setup and then a minimal code change to use Accelerator for device- and precision-agnostic training. According to the GitHub repository, Accelerate is actively maintained under the Apache-2.0 license and has a large contributor base, making it a dependable building block for distributed PyTorch training.
GitHub Statistics
- Stars: 9,426
- Forks: 1,259
- Contributors: 371
- License: Apache-2.0
- Primary Language: Python
- Last Updated: 2026-01-09T15:49:27Z
- Latest Release: v1.12.0
According to the GitHub repository, Accelerate has 9,426 stars, 1,259 forks, and 371 contributors, and is published under the Apache-2.0 license. The project shows ongoing activity with recent commits (most recently on 2026-01-09), frequent PRs, and issue discussions, indicating an active maintainer team and community. The contributor count and star/fork ratios suggest strong adoption across research and engineering teams; integrations with DeepSpeed and FSDP are reflected in regular updates and community-driven examples.
Installation
Install via pip:
pip install -U acceleratepip install 'accelerate[deepspeed]' # install optional DeepSpeed integrationaccelerate config # interactive setup for your environmentaccelerate launch training_script.py # run a training script across configured devices Key Features
- Accelerator class abstracts device placement, mixed precision, and distributed wrapping.
- CLI (accelerate config/launch) to run the same script on single/multi-GPU, TPU, or MPS.
- Integrations with DeepSpeed ZeRO for optimizer state sharding and reduced memory usage.
- Support for PyTorch FSDP to fully shard model parameters across GPUs.
- Automatic mixed precision including fp16, bf16 and fp8 to speed training and reduce memory.
Community
Accelerate benefits from a large, active community hosted on GitHub and Hugging Face channels. According to the repository, it has 9,426 stars and 371 contributors, with regular commits and issue/PR activity. Community resources include GitHub issues/discussions, Hugging Face forums, and examples in the Hugging Face docs and model hub. Users commonly praise its simplicity for converting single-GPU scripts to distributed runs and its interoperability with DeepSpeed and FSDP; ongoing contributions indicate steady improvements and adoption.
Key Information
- Category: Training Tools
- Type: AI Training Tools Tool