title: 'Spice Cloud Platform' description: 'Instructions for using language models served by the Spice.ai Cloud Platform with Spice.' sidebar_label: 'Spice Cloud Platform' sidebar_position: 6

To use a large language model served by the Spice.ai Cloud Platform AI gateway — or by another Spice runtime — specify the spice.ai path in the from field and the associated spiceai_api_key parameter.

Example:

models:
  - from: spice.ai:openai/gpt-4o
    name: cloud_llm
    params:
      spiceai_api_key: ${secrets:SPICEAI_API_KEY}

models:
  - from: spice.ai:openai/gpt-4o
    name: cloud_llm
    params:
      spiceai_api_key: ${secrets:SPICEAI_API_KEY}

from Format

The from field is the source prefix — spice.ai or spiceai — followed by a : or / separator and the model identifier:

• spice.ai:openai/gpt-4o
• spice.ai/openai/gpt-4o
• spiceai:openai/gpt-4o
• spiceai/openai/gpt-4o

All four forms resolve to the same model identifier, openai/gpt-4o. Both spellings of the prefix are accepted so that a from reads the same whether it names a model or a dataset (opens in a new tab).

Model identifiers take the form <provider>/<model> (for example openai/gpt-4o or anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet); the identifiers available depend on what the endpoint serves. A from that names only the prefix (e.g. from: spice.ai or from: spice.ai:) carries no model identifier and fails to load.

Connecting to Another Spice Runtime

Because the model is reached over an OpenAI-compatible HTTP API, spiceai_endpoint can point at another Spice runtime instead of the Cloud Platform. The endpoint is the root of the deployment — the OpenAI-compatible API is served under /v1, and an endpoint that already names /v1 is used as-is.

models:
  - from: spice.ai:openai/gpt-4o
    name: upstream_llm
    params:
      spiceai_endpoint: http://localhost:8090

models:
  - from: spice.ai:openai/gpt-4o
    name: upstream_llm
    params:
      spiceai_endpoint: http://localhost:8090

An API key is optional for a self-hosted Spice runtime, which may not have authentication enabled. The Spice.ai Cloud Platform always authenticates, so omitting spiceai_api_key when the endpoint resolves to the Cloud Platform is rejected at load time.

:::note

The spice.ai model source serves large language models only. Support for loading and serving traditional machine learning (ONNX) models was removed in v2.2 — see Machine Learning Models (opens in a new tab).

:::