Last updated 08-14-2026
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fast.ai
fast.ai teaches deep learning through free online courses built for coders who may not have a PhD or a giant GPU budget. The site hosts Practical Deep Learning for Coders, the newer How to Solve It With Code track on Solveit, and a long-running blog on AI ethics, education, and research from founders Jeremy Howard and Rachel Thomas.
Most ML courses assume you already know linear algebra and can navigate academic papers. fast.ai flips that: you start by training useful models in the first lesson, then peel back the theory as you go. The companion fastai PyTorch library and nbdev notebook tooling are open source, so what you learn in the videos maps directly to production code rather than toy exercises.
Students, career switchers, and working developers who want hands-on deep learning without gatekeeping use fast.ai. The nonprofit research institute joined Answer.AI in 2024 while keeping its courses and libraries free, and its work has been covered by The Economist, The New York Times, and MIT Technology Review.
Practical Deep Learning for Coders free course with video lessons and notebooks
fastai PyTorch library provides high-level APIs for state-of-the-art model training
nbdev lets you build documented Python packages entirely inside Jupyter notebooks
How to Solve It With Code course on Solveit for iterative coding education
Companion book Deep Learning for Coders with fastai and PyTorch published by O'Reilly
Scholarships available for open source contributors and diversity scholars on select courses
Blog and research posts cover AI ethics, health, and technical deep dives since 2016
Completely free courses with a code-first approach that gets models running quickly
fastai library simplifies PyTorch training while staying flexible for customization
Strong focus on AI ethics and responsible technology alongside technical skills
Active community forum and scholarships for contributors and underrepresented groups
Courses assume Python programming comfort; complete beginners may need prep work first
How to Solve It With Code runs on the separate Solveit platform, adding another login
No certificates or formal accreditation tied to the free course completions
Is fast.ai free?
Yes. fast.ai's core courses, including Practical Deep Learning for Coders, are free to access online. The fastai and nbdev software libraries are also open source on GitHub.
What courses does fast.ai offer?
fast.ai hosts Practical Deep Learning for Coders at course.fast.ai and the newer How to Solve It With Code experience through Solveit. Past courses cover NLP, stable diffusion foundations, and applied data ethics.
What is the fastai library?
fastai is a PyTorch-based deep learning library that wraps common training workflows into a layered API. It powers the exercises in fast.ai courses and is documented at docs.fast.ai.
Who founded fast.ai?
fast.ai was co-founded by Jeremy Howard and Rachel Thomas as a research institute focused on making deep learning accessible. The organization joined Answer.AI in 2024 while continuing its free educational mission.
Do I need a math PhD for fast.ai courses?
No. fast.ai courses are designed for people with coding experience who may lack formal machine learning training. Lessons start with working models and introduce theory as you build real projects.
What is nbdev?
nbdev is fast.ai's open source tool for developing complete Python packages inside Jupyter notebooks, including tests and documentation. It is documented at nbdev.fast.ai and used across fast.ai projects.