Installation

Install Foundation via pip or from source

Foundation requires Python 3.7 or later. No GPU is needed to run the simulation; a GPU is only required if you plan to accelerate RL training with WarpDrive.

Install via pip

The quickest way to install Foundation is from PyPI:

pip install ai-economist

This installs version 1.7.1 along with all required dependencies (NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, and others listed in requirements.txt).

Install from source

Installing from source lets you edit the framework code and run the included tutorials.

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/salesforce/ai-economist
   
2. Create and activate a conda environment

   conda create --name ai-economist python=3.7 --yes
   conda activate ai-economist
   

   Add the following alias to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile for quick access:

   alias aiecon="conda activate ai-economist; cd <local path to ai-economist>"
   

   Then run aiecon once to activate the environment and change to the project directory.

3. Install the package

   Choose one of the two approaches:

   Editable install (recommended)

   cd ai-economist
   pip install -e .
   

   The editable install (-e .) is recommended because it keeps the installed package in sync with any source edits you make.

4. Verify the installation

   conda activate ai-economist
   python -c "import ai_economist"
   

   No output means the import succeeded. If you see an ImportError, double-check that the conda environment is active and that the install step completed without errors.

Optional: GPU-accelerated training with WarpDrive

Foundation integrates with WarpDrive, a high-throughput multi-agent RL framework that runs thousands of environment rollouts in parallel on a single GPU. To enable WarpDrive support, install the extra package:

pip install rl-warp-drive

WarpDrive requires a CUDA-capable GPU. It is not needed to run or explore Foundation simulations—only for large-scale GPU training.

Dependencies

The key runtime dependencies installed by pip install ai-economist are:

Package	Version	Purpose
numpy	1.21.0	Array operations throughout the simulation
scipy	1.6.3	Statistical distributions and signal processing
pandas	1.2.4	Dataset handling (COVID-19 data)
matplotlib	3.2.1	Visualization utilities
pyyaml	5.4.1	Configuration file parsing

All pinned versions are in requirements.txt.