ROCm (AMD GPU) Dockerfile of verl

This directory provides the Docker recipe for running verl on AMD GPUs with the ROCm software stack. The NVIDIA images described in ../README.md do not work on AMD hardware, so use Dockerfile.rocm instead.

For an end-to-end walkthrough (build, run, and example PPO/GRPO commands), see the tutorial: docs/amd_tutorial/amd_quick_start.rst.

The other Dockerfile.rocm* / Apptainerfile.rocm files in this directory are kept only as historical references for older verl releases (ROCm 6.x, pinned verl 0.3.x / 0.4.x). New work should target Dockerfile.rocm.

Supported Hardware

The image targets the following GPU architectures (GPU_ARCH):

gfx942 — MI300 series (MI300X / MI300A / MI325X)
gfx950 — MI350 series (MI350X / MI355X)

Other architectures (e.g. gfx90a for MI200/MI250) can be built by overriding GPU_ARCH, but are not validated here.

Key Versions

Component	Version
ROCm	7.14
Python	3.12
PyTorch	2.12.0+rocm7.14
Triton	3.7.0
vLLM	0.22.1rc1 source @ `18d87a87d`
SGLang	0.5.15 source @ `0801cc05ed`
Flash Attention	ROCm fork (CK backend) @ `v2.8.3`
TransformerEngine	2.14.0 ROCm fork @ `e6ede467`
aiter	ROCm @ `b5e03ed19`
megatron-core	0.18.0

What the Image Contains

Starting from a base image rocm/primus:v26.4 , Dockerfile.rocm installs:

Prebuilt (downloaded), not compiled:

ROCm 7.14 runtime + dev packages (via the repo.radeon.com apt repo)
torch, apex, torchaudio, torchvision, triton — prebuilt in base images.
Flash Attention, TransformerEngine (ROCm fork)

Built from source (pinned commits):

vLLM
SGLang

Also installed: cupy-rocm, mbridge, megatron-core, megatron-bridge, transformers, and the verl package itself.

Building Locally

The Dockerfile uses BuildKit cache mounts (RUN --mount=...), so BuildKit is required (with the buildx plugin). If you see the --mount option requires BuildKit, install buildx (sudo apt-get install -y docker-buildx) and prefix the build with DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1.

DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build \
    -f docker/rocm/Dockerfile.rocm \
    -t verl-rocm:local .

Useful build arguments

Build arg	Default	Purpose
`GPU_ARCH`	`gfx942;gfx950`	GPU architectures to compile kernels for. Set to a single arch (e.g. `gfx942`) to roughly halve Flash Attention build time.
`PYTHON_VERSION`	`3.12`	Python version. Note: the prebuilt wheel URLs are pinned to the `cp312` ABI; changing this also requires updating those URLs.
`MAX_JOBS`	`$(nproc)`	Parallel compile jobs. Lower it (e.g. `64`) if the vLLM build runs out of memory.
`VLLM_TAG` / `AITER_TAG`	pinned	Source commits for the from-source components.

Example — build only for MI300 with a memory-safe job count:

DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build \
    -f docker/rocm/Dockerfile.rocm \
    --build-arg GPU_ARCH=gfx942 \
    --build-arg MAX_JOBS=64 \
    -t verl-rocm:mi300 .

Release History

2026/07/20: ROCm 7.14 stack — torch==2.12.0, triton==3.7.0, vLLM @18d87a87d, SGLang @0801cc05ed, Flash Attention (CK) @v2.8.3, TransformerEngine @e6ede467, aiter @b5e03ed19, megatron-core==0.18.0; targets gfx942 / gfx950.
2026/06/03: ROCm 7.0.2 stack — torch==2.9.1, triton==3.5.1, vLLM @1ff9d3353, Flash Attention (CK) @83f9e450, TransformerEngine @386bd316, aiter @45c428e54, megatron-core==0.16.0; targets gfx942 / gfx950.