Run a managed Kubernetes service on your own NVIDIA GPU infrastructure. NVIDIA Kubernetes® Engine (NVKE) provides the management plane that platform teams install to create and operate Kubernetes clusters for their customers. Each workload cluster has its own Kubernetes control plane, etcd and node pools. You operate the NVKE management plane; your customers use their clusters through the Kubernetes API and kubectl.
Preview: NVKE is available as a preview. APIs, configuration and behavior can change between releases, and we do not recommend NVKE for production workloads. See Preview status and known limitations.
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Getting started
| Your goal |
Start here |
What you get |
| Evaluate without GPU hardware |
Local quickstart |
A development management plane and a workload cluster on simulated machines. No NVIDIA account is required. |
| Install on your infrastructure |
Plan your installation |
The prerequisites and sequence for preparing nodes, bootstrapping a management cluster and installing its services. |
| Build or contribute |
Build from source |
The NVKE binaries and the contributor development loop. |
The local quickstart runs on a Linux host or VM, amd64 or arm64, with at least 6 CPUs, 12 GiB of free memory and 100 GiB of free disk. It requires Docker, virtual TPM support and the tools listed in the guide. Follow its setup through workload-cluster creation and confirm the cluster's nodes report Ready. On macOS, use the local site guide, which runs the evaluation inside a Colima virtual machine.
For a real installation, you supply the machines, networking, node images and registries, and configure access to NVIDIA Infra Controller (NICo). NICo is the sole compatible infrastructure provider at preview. The platform and version reference lists validated combinations and pinned dependencies.
What NVKE does
- Creates independent workload clusters. Request clusters through the NVKE API or
nvkectl; NVKE provisions machines through NICo and forms Kubernetes clusters with their own control planes.
- Manages workload cluster lifecycle. Create, scale and delete node pools, upgrade Kubernetes and replace nodes. See the node pool guide for the manual steps and preview limits on replacement and upgrades.
- Establishes node identity. Nodes attest through SPIFFE/SPIRE using their TPM before receiving join credentials. Encryption of etcd data is available per cluster.
- Connects builds to deployment. Its companion project, NVIDIA Kubernetes Recipes (NVKR), builds node images and NVKE components from pinned inputs. NVKE deploys those artifacts; NVKR owns their build and release evidence.
The preview needs explicit operator configuration: API authentication is off and the API uses plain HTTP after installation. Configure API authentication and protected access before admitting callers. The management cluster does not upgrade, scale or replace itself, and there is no management-plane upgrade or backup/restore procedure. FDE node images are for evaluation and provide no data-at-rest confidentiality. Read the known limitations before choosing an evaluation or installation path.
Overview
The diagram shows the NVKE product family, how it sits on NICo and your GPU machines, and which components talk to each other.
NVKE is not a Kubernetes distribution and not a Cluster API flavour. It is a self-hosting factory for Kubernetes clusters: a throwaway seed cluster stands up a management cluster, and the management plane on it then provisions and lifecycle-manages many isolated workload clusters on demand.
An installation has two kinds of Kubernetes cluster:
- The management cluster runs the NVKE management plane and infrastructure controllers.
nvkectl forms it using a temporary seed cluster; installing the management-plane services is a separate step.
- Workload clusters run customer applications. The management plane creates and operates them through NICo, Cluster API and the node agent.
Read What is NVKE for the operator workflow and Architecture for the implementation and data flows.
Build from source
Use Go 1.27.3, the version pinned in go.work, and GNU Make 4 or later. Public Go modules must be reachable on the first build. Flox is optional and supplies the repository's development tools; on macOS, it also supplies GNU Make 4. See Development for toolchain setup.
git clone https://github.com/dsx-ai-factory/nvke.git
cd nvke
make build
This builds the workspace and writes nine binaries to bin/: agent, updater, controller, nvkectl, capd-reboot-controller, nvke-os-image-check, management-engine, tenant-api and operator-api. Building does not start a management plane or create a cluster. The node agent runs on Linux.
The workspace guide explains the modules and outputs. For local services and test environments, see Local development setup. Before submitting a change, follow CONTRIBUTING.md and run make preflight; it selects checks for the modules you changed.
Documentation
The documentation index links the remaining guides and references.
Contributing and support
Contributions, bug reports and documentation improvements are welcome. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md; open an issue before substantial work so maintainers can agree on the approach.
Trademarks
Kubernetes® is a registered trademark of The Linux Foundation in the United States and other countries. NVIDIA and the NVIDIA logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
License
Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE and NOTICE.
Copyright (c) 2026 NVIDIA CORPORATION & AFFILIATES. All rights reserved.
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