GAIA supports running agents on your AMD Ryzen AI NPU via the FastFlowLM (FLM) backend. NPU inference is power-efficient and frees your GPU for other tasks.
Requirements
- Hardware: AMD Ryzen AI 300/400/Max series processor with XDNA2 NPU
- Strix Point, Strix Halo, Kraken Point, or Gorgon Point
- Ryzen AI 7000/8000/200-series (XDNA1) is not supported
- Software: Lemonade Server v10.10.0+
- Driver: Latest AMD NPU driver (firmware v1.1.0.0+)
Ryzen AI 7000/8000/200-series chips have XDNA1 NPUs which are not supported by FastFlowLM. Use --device gpu instead.
Linux
NPU inference works on Linux the same way — run gaia init --profile npu and Lemonade Server installs the FLM backend automatically.
If Lemonade detects that your system needs additional setup (for example, the amdxdna kernel driver on older kernels), it will point you to the Lemonade Linux FLM guide with distro-specific steps. Follow them, then re-run gaia init --profile npu.
Setup
Initialize GAIA with the NPU profile:
This will:
- Verify NPU hardware is detected
- Install the FLM backend (
flm:npu)
- Download the NPU-optimized model (
gemma4-it-e2b-FLM)
- Run a verification test
Usage
CLI
Agent UI
- Launch with
gaia chat --ui
- In the Agent Hub, each agent card shows a device dropdown
- Select NPU from the dropdown (only visible if NPU hardware is detected)
- A green ✓ badge indicates the agent has been verified on that device
Evaluation
Compare agent quality across devices:
Device Selection
Fallback Behavior
- Explicit
--device npu: fails immediately if NPU not available
- Default (no
--device): uses GPU; falls back to CPU with a warning if no GPU detected
Email agent: no --device flag — auto-detected instead
The email triage agent doesn’t take a --device flag. When it isn’t given
an explicit model, it probes the Lemonade Server it’s configured against and
picks gemma4-it-e2b-FLM automatically if an NPU is available there and the
model is already downloaded — otherwise it falls back to
Gemma-4-E4B-it-GGUF, the same GPU/CPU default above. GET /v1/email/init
reports which one was resolved. See the email agent
contract
for the full resolution order.
Troubleshooting
NPU not detected
Verify your hardware:
- Check processor model supports XDNA2 (Ryzen AI 300+ series)
- Ensure NPU driver is installed: check Device Manager (Windows) or
lspci | grep NPU (Linux)
- Try
lemonade backends to see available backends
FLM backend installation fails
Install manually:
Model not available
If gemma4-it-e2b-FLM is not found, pull it manually: