# Cannot install Faiss in Google Collab
**URL:**
**Author:**  [@dkoh12](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Fu%2Fdkoh12)%5C
**Post date:** [May 11, 2023, 12:07am UTC](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Ft%2Fcannot-install-faiss-in-google-collab%2F39451%2F1 "2023-05-11T00:07:41Z")
Has anyone gotten FAISS index to work in Google Collab (free version)?
I tried following the example mentioned in the doc.
> **[Search index](https://huggingface.co/docs/datasets/v1.13.0/faiss_es.html)**
>
> FAISS and ElasticSearch enables searching for examples in a dataset. This can be useful when you want to retrieve specific examples from a dataset that are r...
However it throws an error at `add_faiss_index()` method saying you must install Faiss to use FaissIndex. This is despite the fact that I do
```auto
!pip install faiss-cpu
!pip install faiss-gpu
```
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**Author:**  [@mariosasko](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Fu%2Fmariosasko)%5C
**Post date:** [May 11, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Ft%2Fcannot-install-faiss-in-google-collab%2F39451%2F2 "2023-05-11T17:09:25Z")
You can find the solution to this issue in the [Discord thread](https://discord.com/channels/879548962464493619/1106008166422028319/1106008166422028319).
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**Author:**  [@marcoespinoza](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Fu%2Fmarcoespinoza)%5C
**Post date:** [January 23, 2025, 5:44pm UTC](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Ft%2Fcannot-install-faiss-in-google-collab%2F39451%2F3 "2025-01-23T17:44:37Z")
Were you able able to find a solution? I am encountering the same issue but in Snowflake. I have tried to follow the Discord threat but it seems it has been deleted.
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**Author:**  [@GabrielPereiraIPCB](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Fu%2FGabrielPereiraIPCB)%5C
**Post date:** [January 23, 2025, 10:28pm UTC](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Ft%2Fcannot-install-faiss-in-google-collab%2F39451%2F4 "2025-01-23T22:28:05Z")
I am getting the same problems. I do `!pip install faiss-gpu` and it gives me a message error. I ignore it and run the code and it actually works. Later I try to run again and it doesn’t and have this issue with faiss.
Trying to fix it but so far nothing
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**Author:**  [@marcoespinoza](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Fu%2Fmarcoespinoza)%5C
**Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 12:52pm UTC](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Ft%2Fcannot-install-faiss-in-google-collab%2F39451%2F5 "2025-01-24T12:52:30Z")
I found the solution. The following code should fix it.
```auto
!apt install -y libomp-dev
!python -m pip install --upgrade faiss-gpu
```
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**Author:**  [@dzungever](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Fu%2Fdzungever)%5C
**Post date:** [June 10, 2025, 3:05pm UTC](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Ft%2Fcannot-install-faiss-in-google-collab%2F39451%2F6 "2025-06-10T15:05:39Z")
I used this command and it works.
```auto
!pip install faiss-gpu-cu11==1.10.0
```
---
**Author:**  [@oguzinc](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Fu%2Foguzinc)%5C
**Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 1:16pm UTC](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Ft%2Fcannot-install-faiss-in-google-collab%2F39451%2F7 "2025-12-31T13:16:44Z")
```auto
!pip install faiss-gpu-cu12
```
This does work for me too. Depending on your cuda version you might need to install faiss-gpu-cu12. You can check your cuda version:
```auto
import torch
print(torch.version.cuda)
```
Another thing to note, I got an error when I imported datasets library and then installed faiss, maybe somethings are cached. It’s better to do the installation first and then import all your libraries.