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For background on what IMEX is and how it relates to NVLink domains on CoreWeave, start with IMEX overview. IMEX (Internode Memory Exchange) is NVIDIA’s mechanism for enabling direct GPU-to-GPU memory access across Nodes within the same NVLink Domain. On NVL72-powered instances, IMEX is required for multi-node workloads that rely on high-bandwidth communication across all Nodes in a rack.
Limited AvailabilityDRA IMEX is currently in Limited Availability on NVL72-powered instances, and is under active development. To have this feature enabled for your cluster, contact your CoreWeave account manager or reach out to our sales team.
CoreWeave has begun using the NVIDIA DRA Driver as its mechanism for assigning IMEX channels to workloads. It provides the ComputeDomain abstraction which takes care of necessary machinery to present IMEX channels as an allocatable container resources via DRA.
Previously, CoreWeave provisioned IMEX channels transparently via the nvidia-imex daemonset. With the NVIDIA DRA driver, IMEX channel allocation is on-demand for Pods requesting them.

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Provisioning ComputeDomains

A ComputeDomain defines a logical container for a set of Nodes that are permitted to share an IMEX channel allocation. You create a ComputeDomain in your namespace, and the controller generates a corresponding ResourceClaimTemplate that workloads can reference to obtain access to a shared channel.
Each independent workload should use its own ComputeDomain. Deploying multiple workloads into a single ComputeDomain works, but may result in unintended memory sharing between them.
apiVersion: resource.nvidia.com/v1beta1
kind: ComputeDomain
metadata:
  name: [YOUR-COMPUTE-DOMAIN-NAME]
  namespace: [YOUR-NAMESPACE]
spec:
  channel:
    resourceClaimTemplate:
      name: imex-channel-0
The ResourceClaimTemplate will contain the same name and namespace. 
apiVersion: resource.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: ResourceClaimTemplate
metadata:
  name: imex-channel-0
  namespace: [YOUR-NAMESPACE]
  # ...

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Claiming IMEX channels from a ComputeDomain

A ComputeDomain is designed to follow the workload, its Node membership is determined by where Pods land. This means the validity of the resulting IMEX domain depends entirely on scheduling. If Pods spread across Nodes that are not physically connected via NVLink, the workload may not function as expected. For this reason, workloads should always include affinity rules to constrain Pods to Nodes within the same rack. To claim an IMEX channel, add a resourceClaims entry to your Pod specification that references the ResourceClaimTemplate for your rack. Each container that needs IMEX access must also declare the claim under resources.claims.

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Minimal example

Replace [TEMPLATE-NAME] with the name of the channel defined in your ComputeDomain.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: imex-workload
  labels:
    app: imex-workload
spec:
  resourceClaims:
  - name: imex-channel
    resourceClaimTemplateName: [TEMPLATE-NAME]
  containers:
  - name: workload
    image: [YOUR-IMAGE]
    resources:
      claims:
      - name: imex-channel
      requests:
        nvidia.com/gpu: 4
  affinity:
    podAffinity:
      requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
      - labelSelector:
          matchExpressions:
          - key: app
            operator: In
            values:
            - imex-workload
        topologyKey: nvidia.com/gpu.clique

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Multi-Node example: MPIJob across a full GB200 rack

For full-rack distributed workloads, the following example schedules an MPIJob across all Nodes of a GB200 rack using DRA IMEX.
This example requires the MPI Operator to be installed in your cluster.
  • slotsPerWorker: 4 matches the 4 GPUs per Node on GB200 NVL72 systems.
  • replicas: 18 covers all Nodes in a single GB200 rack.
  • The topologyKey: nvidia.com/gpu.clique affinity ensures all worker Pods land on Nodes within the same NVLink partition: as identified by GPU Feature Discovery.
apiVersion: kubeflow.org/v2beta1
kind: MPIJob
metadata:
  name: dra-example-gb200-4x
spec:
  slotsPerWorker: 4
  runPolicy:
    cleanPodPolicy: Running
  mpiReplicaSpecs:
    Launcher:
      replicas: 1
      template:
        spec:
          containers:
            - image: ghcr.io/nvidia/k8s-samples:nvbandwidth-v0.7-8d103163
              name: mpi-launcher
              securityContext:
                runAsUser: 1000
              command: ["/bin/bash", "-c"]
              args:
                - sleep infinity
              resources:
                requests:
                  cpu: 2
                  memory: 128Mi
    Worker:
      replicas: 18
      template:
        metadata:
          labels:
            app: nvbandwidth-test-worker
        spec:
          resourceClaims:
          - name: imex-channel
            resourceClaimTemplateName: [IMEX-CHANNEL-TEMPLATE-NAME]
          containers:
            - image: ghcr.io/nvidia/k8s-samples:nvbandwidth-v0.7-8d103163
              name: nccl
              securityContext:
                privileged: false
              resources:
                claims:
                - name: imex-channel
                requests:
                  cpu: 110
                  memory: 960Gi
                  nvidia.com/gpu: 4
                limits:
                  memory: 960Gi
                  nvidia.com/gpu: 4
              volumeMounts:
                - mountPath: /dev/shm
                  name: dshm
          affinity:
            podAffinity:
              requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
              - labelSelector:
                  matchExpressions:
                  - key: app
                    operator: In
                    values:
                    - nvbandwidth-test-worker
                topologyKey: nvidia.com/gpu.clique
          volumes:
            - emptyDir:
                medium: Memory
              name: dshm

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Verifying resource allocation

After submitting a workload, verify that ResourceClaims are in allocated,reserved state: 
kubectl get resourceclaim -n [YOUR-NAMESPACE]
Expected output: 
NAME                                         STATE                AGE
dra-example-gb200-4x-worker-0-imex-...      allocated,reserved   30s
dra-example-gb200-4x-worker-1-imex-...      allocated,reserved   30s
If claims remain unallocated, verify that:
  • The ComputeDomain for your rack is active: kubectl get computedomain -A
  • The resourceClaimTemplateName in your Pod spec exactly matches an available ResourceClaimTemplate
  • All Pods are scheduled on Nodes within the same nvidia.com/gpu.clique domain
Last modified on May 12, 2026