diff --git a/examples/tic_tac_toe/tic-tac-toe.py b/examples/tic_tac_toe/tic-tac-toe.py
index b253aed0..4b752d18 100644
--- a/examples/tic_tac_toe/tic-tac-toe.py
+++ b/examples/tic_tac_toe/tic-tac-toe.py
@@ -3,8 +3,13 @@
 import asyncio
 import argparse
 from dotenv import load_dotenv
+from vllm.plugins import load_general_plugins
+
+load_general_plugins()
 
 import art
+from art.utils.deploy_model import LoRADeploymentProvider
+
 from rollout import rollout, TicTacToeScenario
 
 
@@ -46,6 +51,22 @@ async def main():
         project="tic-tac-toe",
         base_model="meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct",
     )
+    # taken from https://github.com/snowflakedb/ArcticInference?tab=readme-ov-file#offline
+    model._internal_config = art.dev.InternalModelConfig(
+        engine_args=art.dev.EngineArgs(
+            quantization="fp8",
+            tensor_parallel_size=1,
+            ulysses_sequence_parallel_size=2,
+            enable_shift_parallel=True,
+            speculative_config={
+                "method": "arctic",
+                "model": "Snowflake/Arctic-LSTM-Speculator-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct",
+                "num_speculative_tokens": 3,
+                "enable_suffix_decoding": True,
+                "disable_by_batch_size": 64,
+            },
+        )
+    )
 
     if PULL_FROM_S3:
         print("pulling from s3")
@@ -72,7 +93,7 @@ async def main():
     if DEPLOY_MODEL:
         print("deploying")
         deployment_result = await backend._experimental_deploy(
-            deploy_to="together",
+            deploy_to=LoRADeploymentProvider.TOGETHER,
             model=model,
             step=STEP,
             verbose=True,
@@ -97,8 +118,11 @@ async def main():
 
         print(traj)
 
-    if DESTROY_AFTER_RUN:
-        await backend.down()
+    if DESTROY_AFTER_RUN and args.backend == "skypilot":
+        from art.skypilot.backend import SkyPilotBackend
+
+        if isinstance(backend, SkyPilotBackend):
+            await backend.down()
 
     if GENERATE_BENCHMARKS:
         gpt_4o_mini = art.Model(
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 5e2222ca..80b14ebd 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ dependencies = [
     "torchao>=0.9.0",
     "unsloth==2025.5.1 ; sys_platform == 'linux'",
     "unsloth-zoo==2025.5.1 ; sys_platform == 'linux'",
-    "vllm==0.8.5.post1",
+    "vllm==0.9.0.1",
     "wandb>=0.19.8",
     "weave>=0.51.51",
     "peft>=0.14.0",
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ dependencies = [
     "hf-xet>=1.1.0",
     "panza",
     "semver>=3.0.4",
+    "arctic_inference[vllm] @ git+https://github.com/OpenPipe/ArcticInference.git@v0.0.8 ; sys_platform == 'linux'",
 ]
 
 [project.optional-dependencies]
diff --git a/src/art/dev/engine.py b/src/art/dev/engine.py
index e3045dfc..a0489810 100644
--- a/src/art/dev/engine.py
+++ b/src/art/dev/engine.py
@@ -87,6 +87,7 @@ class EngineArgs(TypedDict, total=False):
     guided_decoding_backend: str
     logits_processor_pattern: str | None
     # Speculative decoding configuration.
+    speculative_config: dict[str, Any] | None
     speculative_model: str | None
     speculative_model_quantization: str | None
     speculative_draft_tensor_parallel_size: int | None
@@ -125,3 +126,8 @@ class EngineArgs(TypedDict, total=False):
     additional_config: dict[str, Any] | None
 
     disable_log_requests: bool
+
+    # arctic-inference
+    ulysses_sequence_parallel_size: int | None
+    enable_shift_parallel: bool | None
+    shift_parallel_threshold: int | None
diff --git a/src/art/local/vllm.py b/src/art/local/vllm.py
index adb2ec98..d32e8849 100644
--- a/src/art/local/vllm.py
+++ b/src/art/local/vllm.py
@@ -15,9 +15,12 @@
 from vllm.logger import _DATE_FORMAT, _FORMAT
 from vllm.utils import FlexibleArgumentParser
 from vllm.worker.multi_step_model_runner import MultiStepModelRunner
+from vllm.plugins import load_general_plugins
 
 from ..dev.openai_server import OpenAIServerConfig
 
+load_general_plugins()
+
 
 async def openai_server_task(
     engine: EngineClient,
@@ -274,7 +277,9 @@ async def get_self_lora_tokenizer_async(self, *args, **kwargs):
     vllm.transformers_utils.tokenizer_group.get_lora_tokenizer_async = (  # type: ignore
         _return_nothing
     )
-    vllm.transformers_utils.tokenizer_group.TokenizerGroup.get_lora_tokenizer_async = get_self_lora_tokenizer_async  # type: ignore
+    vllm.transformers_utils.tokenizer_group.TokenizerGroup.get_lora_tokenizer_async = (
+        get_self_lora_tokenizer_async  # type: ignore
+    )
 
 
 def patch_listen_for_disconnect() -> None: