> This page is for GenMol, version 2.0.0 (Latest) (default).
> For other versions, use one of these documentation indexes:
> - 2.0.0 (Latest) (default): https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/genmol/2.0.0/llms.txt
> - 1.0.1: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/genmol/1.0.1/llms.txt
> - 1.0.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/genmol/1.0.0/llms.txt

> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/llms.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/_mcp/server.

# Prerequisites

Before you begin using GenMol NIM, ensure the following requirements are met.

## Hardware and Software

* One supported NVIDIA GPU. Refer to the [Support Matrix](/nim/bionemo/genmol/support-matrix).
* NVIDIA GPU Driver `580.126.20` or newer
* [Docker](https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/)
* [NVIDIA Container Toolkit](https://docs.nvidia.com/datacenter/cloud-native/container-toolkit/latest/install-guide.html)

Verify that your container runtime can see the GPU:

```bash
docker run --rm --runtime=nvidia --gpus=all ubuntu nvidia-smi
```

## NGC Account and API Key

To generate and use an API key:

1. [Create an account on NGC](https://catalog.ngc.nvidia.com/)
2. [Generate a personal API key](https://org.ngc.nvidia.com/setup/api-key)
3. Export the API key in your shell:

```bash
export NGC_API_KEY=<your_api_key>
```

To persist the key across sessions, add the export to your shell startup file:

```bash
# bash
echo 'export NGC_API_KEY=<your_api_key>' >> ~/.bashrc

# zsh
echo 'export NGC_API_KEY=<your_api_key>' >> ~/.zshrc
```

4. Log in to `nvcr.io` with the API key:

```bash
echo "$NGC_API_KEY" | docker login nvcr.io --username '$oauthtoken' --password-stdin
```

## Optional: NGC CLI

The NGC CLI is useful for inspecting container and model metadata.

```bash
ngc config set
```

## Storage

Create a writable cache directory on the host before launching the container:

```bash
export LOCAL_NIM_CACHE=~/.cache/nim/genmol
mkdir -p "$LOCAL_NIM_CACHE"
chmod 777 "$LOCAL_NIM_CACHE"
```