To determine the installed CANN software version and inspect NPU device status on Atlas platforms, administrators can use both file-based metadata and the npu-smi command-line utility.

Checking CANN Toolkit Version via Installation Metadata

The CANN toolkit and related packages store version information in plain-text configuration files within their installation directories. By default, these are located under /usr/local/Ascend, though the path may vary depending on installation preferences.

Navigate to the specific toolkit directory corresponding to your architecture:

cd /usr/local/Ascend/ascend-toolkit/latest/arm64-linux

Replace arm64 with x86_64 if running on an Intel/AMD system. The latest symlink typically points to the active version.

Retrieve the version details using:

cat ascend_toolkit_install.info

Sample output:

package_name=Ascend-cann-toolkit
version=7.0.RC1
innerversion=V100R001C13SPC005B246
compatible_version=[V100R001C29],[V100R001C30],[V100R001C13],[V100R003C10],[V100R003C11]
arch=aarch64
os=linux
path=/usr/local/Ascend/ascend-toolkit/7.0.RC1/aarch64-linux

This file confirms the exact release, internal build ID, supported compatible versions, and target architecture.

Using npu-smi for NPU Device Management

The npu-smi tool is the primary interface for monitoring and managing Ascend NPU devices. It supports querying hardware health, performance metrics, firmware status, and configuration.

Displaying General NPU Status

List all connected NPUs with basic metrics:

npu-smi info

Output example:

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| npu-smi 23.0.rc3                                 Version: 23.0.rc3                                     |
+-------------------------------+-----------------+------------------------------------------------------+
| NPU     Name                  | Health          | Power(W)     Temp(C)           Hugepages-Usage(page) |
| Chip    Device                | Bus-Id          | AICore(%)    Memory-Usage(MB)                        |
+===============================+=================+======================================================+
| 0       310B4                 | OK              | 7.0          45                15    / 15            |
| 0       0                     | NA              | 0            1930 / 3513                             |
+===============================+=================+======================================================+

Retrieving npu-smi Tool Version

Check the utility’s own version:

npu-smi -v

Querying Board-Level Details

To obtain detailed hardware specifications, first identify the NPU ID using:

npu-smi info -l

Sample output:

        Card Count                     : 1

        NPU ID                         : 0
        Product Name                   : IT22MMDB
        Serial Number                  : 102357609411
        Chip Count                     : 1

Then fetch full board information for the identified ID (e.g., ID 0):

npu-smi info -t board -i 0

Output includes:

        NPU ID                         : 0
        Product Name                   : IT22MMDB
        Model                          : Model=
        Manufacturer                   : Huawei
        Serial Number                  : 102357609411
        Software Version               : 23.0.rc3
        Firmware Version               : 7.0.0.5.242
        Board ID                       : 0x45
        PCB ID                         : B
        BOM ID                         : 1
        Chip Count                     : 1
        Faulty Chip Count              : 0

Note: Firmware and slot details require root privileges to display.

Viewing Real-Time Resource Utilization

For per-chip performance metrics, use:

npu-smi info -t common -i 0

Sample output:

        NPU ID                         : 0
        Chip Count                     : 1

        Chip ID                        : 0
        Memory Usage Rate(%)           : 32
        Aicore Usage Rate(%)           : 0
        Temperature(C)                 : 45
        Rated Power Dissipation(W)     : 7.0

Inspecting Running Processes

To monitor active workloads on the host system, use standard Linux process inspection:

ps aux

This displays all running processses, including thier PID, CPU and memory usage, enabling correlation between system load and NPU activity.