Install Intel® NPU firmware

Introduction

Intel® NPU device is an AI inference accelerator integrated with Intel client CPUs, starting from Intel® Core™ Ultra generation of CPUs (formerly known as Meteor Lake). It enables energy-efficient execution of artificial neural network tasks.

To make sure that your system has an NPU available, please follow the steps in the dedicated guide on how to do so.

The full device name is Neural Processing Unit, but the Linux kernel driver uses the old name - Versatile Processing Unit (VPU).

Installation

1. Remove old packages.

   sudo dpkg --purge --force-remove-reinstreq intel-driver-compiler-npu intel-fw-npu intel-level-zero-npu
   

2. Download all deb packages.

   wget https://github.com/intel/linux-npu-driver/releases/download/v1.13.0/intel-driver-compiler-npu_1.13.0.20250131-13074932693_ubuntu22.04_amd64.deb --no-check-certificate
   wget https://github.com/intel/linux-npu-driver/releases/download/v1.13.0/intel-fw-npu_1.13.0.20250131-13074932693_ubuntu22.04_amd64.deb --no-check-certificate
   wget https://github.com/intel/linux-npu-driver/releases/download/v1.13.0/intel-level-zero-npu_1.13.0.20250131-13074932693_ubuntu22.04_amd64.deb --no-check-certificate
   

3. Install libtbb12 which is a dependency for intel-driver-compiler-npu.

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install libtbb12
   

4. Install all packages.

   sudo dpkg -i *.deb
   

5. Install Level Zero if it is not in the system.

   # Check if Level Zero is installed
   dpkg -l level-zero
   

   Download and install package if Level Zero is missing.

   wget https://github.com/oneapi-src/level-zero/releases/download/v1.18.5/level-zero_1.18.5+u22.04_amd64.deb --no-check-certificate
   sudo dpkg -i level-zero*.deb
   

6. Reboot.

   reboot
   # if everything works, we should see /dev/accel/accel0 device
   ls /dev/accel/accel0
   /dev/accel/accel0
   # to receive intel_vpu state
   dmesg | grep intel_vpu
   

7. User access to the device.

   As a root user, this step can be skipped.

   The new device /dev/accel/accel0 requires manual setting of permissions access. The accel devices should be in the “render” group in Ubuntu:

   # set the render group for accel device
   sudo chown root:render /dev/accel/accel0
   sudo chmod g+rw /dev/accel/accel0
   # add user to the render group
   sudo usermod -a -G render <user-name>
   # user needs to restart the session to use the new group (log out and log in)
   

   The above steps must be repeated each time the module is reloaded or on every reboot. To avoid manual setup of the group for accel device, the udev rules can be used:

   sudo bash -c "echo 'SUBSYSTEM==\"accel\", KERNEL==\"accel*\", GROUP=\"render\", MODE=\"0660\"' > /etc/udev/rules.d/10-intel-vpu.rules"
   sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
   sudo udevadm trigger --subsystem-match=accel
   

Tip: If the NPU is not visible, check the access to the device with the following command:

ls -lah /dev/accel/accel0
crw-rw---- 1 root render 261, 0 Mar 22 13:22 /dev/accel/accel0

If render is missing, or crw-rw---- is not set, please repeat the steps to set the access to the device.