Getting Started

Step 1: Enable developer preview features on SQL Server 2025

ALTER DATABASE SCOPED CONFIGURATION
SET PREVIEW_FEATURES = ON;

Step 2: Enable the local AI runtime on SQL Server 2025

EXEC sp_configure 'external AI runtimes enabled', 1;
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;

Step 3: Set up the ONNX runtime library

cd C:\
mkdir onnx_runtime

Step 4: Set up the tokenization library

Easy Button

Step 5: Download the ONNX model

cd C:\onnx_runtime
mkdir model

cd C:\onnx_runtime\model
git clone https://huggingface.co/nsense/all-MiniLM-L6-v2-onnx

Step 6: Set directory permissions

$AIExtPath = "C:\onnx_runtime";
$Acl = Get-Acl -Path $AIExtPath
$AccessRule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule("MSSQLLaunchpad", "FullControl", "ContainerInherit,ObjectInherit", "None","Allow")
$Acl.AddAccessRule($AccessRule)
Set-Acl -Path $AIExtPath -AclObject $Acl

Step 7: Create the external model

CREATE EXTERNAL MODEL myLocalOnnxModel
WITH (
LOCATION = 'C:\onnx_runtime\model\all-MiniLM-L6-v2-onnx',
API_FORMAT = 'ONNX Runtime',
MODEL_TYPE = EMBEDDINGS,
MODEL = 'allMiniLM',
PARAMETERS = '{"valid":"JSON"}',
LOCAL_RUNTIME_PATH = 'C:\onnx_runtime\'
);

Step 8: Generate embeddings

SELECT ai_generate_embeddings (N'Test Text' USE MODEL myLocalOnnxModel);

Enable XEvent telemetry

CREATE EVENT SESSION newevt
ON SERVER
ADD EVENT ai_generate_embeddings_airuntime_trace
(
ACTION (sqlserver.sql_text, sqlserver.session_id)
)
ADD TARGET package0.ring_buffer
WITH (MAX_MEMORY = 4096 KB, EVENT_RETENTION_MODE = ALLOW_SINGLE_EVENT_LOSS, MAX_DISPATCH_LATENCY = 30 SECONDS, TRACK_CAUSALITY = ON, STARTUP_STATE = OFF);
GO
ALTER EVENT SESSION newevt ON SERVER STATE = START;
GO

SELECT
event_data.value('(@name)[1]', 'varchar(100)') AS event_name,
event_data.value('(@timestamp)[1]', 'datetime2') AS [timestamp],
event_data.value('(data[@name="model_name"]/value)[1]', 'nvarchar(200)') AS model_name,
event_data.value('(data[@name="phase_name"]/value)[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') AS phase,
event_data.value('(data[@name="message"]/value)[1]', 'nvarchar(max)') AS message,
event_data.value('(data[@name="request_id"]/value)[1]', 'nvarchar(max)') AS session_id,
event_data.value('(data[@name="error_code"]/value)[1]', 'bigint') AS error_code
FROM (
SELECT CAST(target_data AS XML) AS target_data
FROM sys.dm_xe_sessions AS s
JOIN sys.dm_xe_session_targets AS t
ON s.address = t.event_session_address
WHERE s.name = 'newevt'
AND t.target_name = 'ring_buffer'
) AS data
CROSS APPLY target_data.nodes('//RingBufferTarget/event') AS XEvent(event_data);

Clean up

DROP EXTERNAL MODEL myLocalOnnxModel;

$Acl.RemoveAccessRule($AccessRule)
Set-Acl -Path $AIExtPath -AclObject $Acl