How To Install and Use PyTorch

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Introduction

PyTorch is a framework developed by Facebook AI Research for deep learning, featuring both beginner-friendly debugging tools and a high-level of customization for advanced users, with researchers and practitioners using it across companies like Facebook and Tesla. Applications include computer vision, natural language processing, cryptography, and more. Whereas more advanced DigitalOcean articles, like Introduction to PyTorch, discuss how PyTorch works and what you can build with PyTorch, this tutorial will focus on installing PyTorch.

In this tutorial, you’ll install PyTorch’s “CPU support only” version in three steps. This installation is ideal for people looking to install and use PyTorch but who don’t have an Nvidia graphics card. In particular, you’ll install PyTorch in a Python virtual environment with virtualenv. This approach isolates the PyTorch installation, allowing you to install different PyTorch versions for each project. Once you complete the installation, you’ll validate your installation by running a short PyTorch program and then use PyTorch to perform image classification.

While you won’t need prior experience in practical deep learning or PyTorch to follow along with this tutorial, we’ll assume some familiarity with machine learning terms and concepts such as tensors. You can learn more about these concepts in An Introduction to Machine Learning.