Overview

Serve and deploy AI models on Lightning AI. Start with Model APIs for hosted models you can call with an API key, move to Lightning AI Inference for managed model deployments, or roll your own with Deploy a container.

Lightning AI offers different levels of inference that trade off control for cost.

Model APIs

Model APIs are the simplest way to consume AI models. Simply get an API key and use your Lightning AI credits to call any model API. Model APIs are pay-as-you-go, which is perfect for rapid prototyping, new projects, and the fastest way to add AI into apps.

# pip install litai
from litai import LLM
llm = LLM(model="openai/gpt-5", api_key="<LIGHTNING_API_KEY>")
print(llm.chat("Hello, world!"))

View all models

Deploy in a Studio

For custom models, prototypes and new projects where you want to power your own inference endpoint, the simplest, fastest thing to do, is to start a Studio, run the server in localhost mode, and expose an endpoint directly from the Studio.

This method allows you to rapidly prototype and debug without submitting jobs or waiting for containers to build.

Learn more