sagemaker.huggingface.HuggingFaceModel can handle S3 path for the model_data argument, as explained in this sample.

• https://github.com/aws/amazon-sagemaker-examples/blob/main/inference/generativeai/huggingface-multimodal/stability-cascade/DeployStableCascade.ipynb

As you are using custom image with image_uri, it is likely that the image is not compatible with the SageMaker, and it is not trying to handle entry point script you specified.

To isolate the problem, please try to change your code to use SageMaker's official image. Then investigate why your custom image is not loading the entry point script.

See also:

• https://github.com/aws/sagemaker-inference-toolkit
• https://github.com/aws/sagemaker-training-toolkit