Installation and Setup

This guide covers the complete installation process for AlphaFold 3 on Linux with NVIDIA GPUs.

AlphaFold 3 requires Linux and does not support other operating systems. Full installation requires up to 1 TB of disk space for genetic databases (SSD storage is recommended).

System Requirements

Hardware Requirements

OS: Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS verified)
GPU: NVIDIA GPU with Compute Capability 8.0 or greater
- NVIDIA A100 80 GB (officially supported)
- NVIDIA H100 80 GB (officially supported)
- A100 40 GB supported with configuration changes
RAM: 64 GB minimum (more recommended for deep MSAs)
Storage: Up to 1 TB for genetic databases (SSD recommended)
CUDA: Version 12.6 or higher

Supported Input Sizes

We have verified that inputs with up to 5,120 tokens can fit on a single NVIDIA A100 80 GB or H100 80 GB. Numerical accuracy has been verified on both GPU types.

Installation Steps Overview

Provision a Linux machine

Set up Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with NVIDIA GPU

Install Docker

Install and configure rootless Docker

Install NVIDIA drivers

Set up GPU drivers and container toolkit

Download AlphaFold 3 source

Clone the GitHub repository

Obtain genetic databases

Download ~630 GB of sequence databases

Request model parameters

Get access to AlphaFold 3 weights

Build Docker container

Create the AlphaFold 3 container image

1. Provisioning a Machine

Clean Ubuntu images are available on Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, and other major platforms.

Example: Google Cloud Setup

Using an existing Google Cloud project:

gcloud compute instances create alphafold3 \
    --machine-type a2-ultragpu-1g \
    --zone us-central1-a \
    --image-family ubuntu-2204-lts \
    --image-project ubuntu-os-cloud \
    --maintenance-policy TERMINATE \
    --boot-disk-size 1000 \
    --boot-disk-type pd-balanced

You can use a2-highgpu-1g for smaller predictions. Adjust the --zone parameter based on your quota and availability.

This provisions an Ubuntu 22.04 LTS image with:

12 CPUs
170 GB RAM
1 TB disk
NVIDIA A100 80 GB GPU

2. Installing Docker

These instructions are for rootless Docker on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

Add Docker’s Official GPG Key

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

Add Docker Repository

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Verify Docker Installation

sudo docker run hello-world

Enable Rootless Docker

sudo apt-get install -y uidmap systemd-container

sudo machinectl shell $(whoami)@ /bin/bash -c 'dockerd-rootless-setuptool.sh install && sudo loginctl enable-linger $(whoami) && DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/user/1001/docker.sock docker context use rootless'

3. Installing GPU Support

Install NVIDIA Drivers

sudo apt-get -y install alsa-utils ubuntu-drivers-common
sudo ubuntu-drivers install

sudo nvidia-smi --gpu-reset

nvidia-smi  # Check that the drivers are installed

If you see “NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver”, reboot the instance with sudo reboot now.

Expected output from nvidia-smi:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 550.120                Driver Version: 550.120        CUDA Version: 12.6     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA A100-SXM4-80GB          Off |   00000000:00:05.0 Off |                    0 |
| N/A   34C    P0             51W /  400W |       1MiB /  81920MiB |      0%      Default |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Install NVIDIA Container Toolkit

curl -fsSL https://nvidia.github.io/libnvidia-container/gpgkey | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/nvidia-container-toolkit-keyring.gpg \
  && curl -s -L https://nvidia.github.io/libnvidia-container/stable/deb/nvidia-container-toolkit.list | \
    sed 's#deb https://#deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/nvidia-container-toolkit-keyring.gpg] https://#g' | \
    sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-container-toolkit.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y nvidia-container-toolkit
nvidia-ctk runtime configure --runtime=docker --config=$HOME/.config/docker/daemon.json
systemctl --user restart docker
sudo nvidia-ctk config --set nvidia-container-cli.no-cgroups --in-place

Verify GPU Access in Docker

docker run --rm --gpus all nvidia/cuda:12.6.0-base-ubuntu22.04 nvidia-smi

If this command shows GPU information, your setup is working correctly.

4. Obtaining AlphaFold 3 Source Code

Install git and clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/google-deepmind/alphafold3.git
cd alphafold3

5. Obtaining Genetic Databases

This step requires wget and zstd. Install them with:

sudo apt install wget zstd

Download All Databases

AlphaFold 3 requires multiple genetic databases:

BFD (small version)
MGnify
PDB (structures in mmCIF format)
PDB seqres
UniProt
UniRef90
NT (nucleotide database)
RFam
RNACentral

Run the provided download script:

cd alphafold3
./fetch_databases.sh [<DB_DIR>]

If <DB_DIR> is not specified, databases will be downloaded to $HOME/public_databases.

Important Notes:

Total download size: ~252 GB
Total unzipped size: ~630 GB
Download time: ~45 minutes on fast connections
The download directory should NOT be a subdirectory of the AlphaFold 3 repository
Ensure full read/write permissions: sudo chmod 755 --recursive <DB_DIR>

Expected Directory Structure

After download, you should have:

<DB_DIR>/
├── mmcif_files/              # ~200k PDB mmCIF files
├── bfd-first_non_consensus_sequences.fasta
├── mgy_clusters_2022_05.fa
├── nt_rna_2023_02_23_clust_seq_id_90_cov_80_rep_seq.fasta
├── pdb_seqres_2022_09_28.fasta
├── rfam_14_9_clust_seq_id_90_cov_80_rep_seq.fasta
├── rnacentral_active_seq_id_90_cov_80_linclust.fasta
├── uniprot_all_2021_04.fa
└── uniref90_2022_05.fa

Optional: Copy to SSD

For better performance, copy databases to an SSD or RAM-backed filesystem after downloading.

6. Obtaining Model Parameters

See the Obtaining Model Parameters guide for instructions on requesting access to AlphaFold 3 weights. Once granted, download the model parameters to <MODEL_PARAMETERS_DIR> (should NOT be a subdirectory of the AlphaFold 3 repository).

7. Building the Docker Container

Build the AlphaFold 3 Docker image:

docker build -t alphafold3 -f docker/Dockerfile .

This step may take 10-20 minutes depending on your internet connection and system performance.

Running Your First Prediction

Create an input JSON file (e.g., $HOME/af_input/fold_input.json):

{
  "name": "2PV7",
  "sequences": [
    {
      "protein": {
        "id": ["A", "B"],
        "sequence": "GMRESYANENQFGFKTINSDIHKIVIVGGYGKLGGLFARYLRASGYPISILDREDWAVAESILANADVVIVSVPINLTLETIERLKPYLTENMLLADLTSVKREPLAKMLEVHTGAVLGLHPMFGADIASMAKQVVVRCDGRFPERYEWLLEQIQIWGAKIYQTNATEHDHNMTYIQALRHFSTFANGLHLSKQPINLANLLALSSPIYRLELAMIGRLFAQDAELYADIIMDKSENLAVIETLKQTYDEALTFFENNDRQGFIDAFHKVRDWFGDYSEQFLKESRQLLQQANDLKQG"
      }
    }
  ],
  "modelSeeds": [1],
  "dialect": "alphafold3",
  "version": 1
}

Run AlphaFold 3

docker run -it \
    --volume $HOME/af_input:/root/af_input \
    --volume $HOME/af_output:/root/af_output \
    --volume <MODEL_PARAMETERS_DIR>:/root/models \
    --volume <DB_DIR>:/root/public_databases \
    --gpus all \
    alphafold3 \
    python run_alphafold.py \
    --json_path=/root/af_input/fold_input.json \
    --model_dir=/root/models \
    --output_dir=/root/af_output

You may need to create and set permissions for the output directory:

mkdir -p $HOME/af_output
chmod 755 $HOME/af_input $HOME/af_output

Key Command-Line Flags

--run_data_pipeline (default: true) - Run genetic and template search (CPU-only, time consuming)
--run_inference (default: true) - Run model inference (requires GPU)
--json_path - Path to input JSON file
--input_dir - Path to directory of JSON files (alternative to --json_path)
--model_dir - Directory containing model parameters
--output_dir - Directory for output files
--db_dir - Database directory (can be specified multiple times for multiple locations)

View All Flags

docker run alphafold3 python run_alphafold.py --help

Alternative: Singularity Installation

If you prefer Singularity over Docker:

Install Singularity

wget https://github.com/sylabs/singularity/releases/download/v4.2.1/singularity-ce_4.2.1-jammy_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg --install singularity-ce_4.2.1-jammy_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install -f

Set up local Docker registry

docker run -d -p 5000:5000 --restart=always --name registry registry:2
docker tag alphafold3 localhost:5000/alphafold3
docker push localhost:5000/alphafold3

Build Singularity image

SINGULARITY_NOHTTPS=1 singularity build alphafold3.sif docker://localhost:5000/alphafold3:latest

Test GPU access

singularity exec --nv alphafold3.sif sh -c 'nvidia-smi'

Run with Singularity

singularity exec \
     --nv \
     --bind $HOME/af_input:/root/af_input \
     --bind $HOME/af_output:/root/af_output \
     --bind <MODEL_PARAMETERS_DIR>:/root/models \
     --bind <DB_DIR>:/root/public_databases \
     alphafold3.sif \
     python run_alphafold.py \
     --json_path=/root/af_input/fold_input.json \
     --model_dir=/root/models \
     --db_dir=/root/public_databases \
     --output_dir=/root/af_output

Troubleshooting

Permission Denied Errors

sudo chmod 755 --recursive <DB_DIR>
chmod 755 $HOME/af_input $HOME/af_output

GPU Not Detected

Verify nvidia-smi works on host
Reboot if needed: sudo reboot now
Test GPU in container: docker run --rm --gpus all nvidia/cuda:12.6.0-base-ubuntu22.04 nvidia-smi

Out of Memory

For inputs larger than 5,120 tokens or GPUs with less memory, enable unified memory by setting environment variables in your Dockerfile:

ENV XLA_PYTHON_CLIENT_PREALLOCATE=false
ENV TF_FORCE_UNIFIED_MEMORY=true
ENV XLA_CLIENT_MEM_FRACTION=3.2

Getting Started

Core Concepts

User Guides

Advanced Usage

Resources

​Installation and Setup

​System Requirements

​Hardware Requirements

​Supported Input Sizes

​Installation Steps Overview

​1. Provisioning a Machine

​Example: Google Cloud Setup

​2. Installing Docker

​Add Docker’s Official GPG Key

​Add Docker Repository

​Verify Docker Installation

​Enable Rootless Docker

​3. Installing GPU Support

​Install NVIDIA Drivers

​Install NVIDIA Container Toolkit

​Verify GPU Access in Docker

​4. Obtaining AlphaFold 3 Source Code

​5. Obtaining Genetic Databases

​Download All Databases

​Expected Directory Structure

​Optional: Copy to SSD

​6. Obtaining Model Parameters

​7. Building the Docker Container

​Running Your First Prediction

​Run AlphaFold 3

​Key Command-Line Flags

​View All Flags

​Alternative: Singularity Installation

​Run with Singularity

​Troubleshooting

​Permission Denied Errors

​GPU Not Detected

​Out of Memory

​Next Steps

Quick Start Guide

Input Documentation

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Installation and Setup

System Requirements

Hardware Requirements

Supported Input Sizes

Installation Steps Overview

1. Provisioning a Machine

Example: Google Cloud Setup

2. Installing Docker

Add Docker’s Official GPG Key

Add Docker Repository

Verify Docker Installation

Enable Rootless Docker

3. Installing GPU Support

Install NVIDIA Drivers

Install NVIDIA Container Toolkit

Verify GPU Access in Docker

4. Obtaining AlphaFold 3 Source Code

5. Obtaining Genetic Databases

Download All Databases

Expected Directory Structure

Optional: Copy to SSD

6. Obtaining Model Parameters

7. Building the Docker Container

Running Your First Prediction

Run AlphaFold 3

Key Command-Line Flags

View All Flags

Alternative: Singularity Installation

Run with Singularity

Troubleshooting

Permission Denied Errors

GPU Not Detected

Out of Memory

Next Steps