A few days ago, I presented Conformalized TabPFN: Prediction Intervals for a Pretrained Transformer for Tabular Data in Python and R. Today, it’s about TabICL, another state-of-the-art tabular foundation model. TabICL requires no token, as you’ll notice in the following Python and R code.

1 – Python version

!pip install tabicl nnetsauce # scikit-learn matplotlib numpy

from sklearn.datasets import load_diabetes
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn.linear_model import RidgeCV
from sklearn.metrics import mean_squared_error
from tabicl import TabICLRegressor
import nnetsauce as ns
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from time import time

# ── data ───────────────────────────────────────────────────
X, y = load_diabetes(return_X_y=True)
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(
    X, y, test_size=0.2, random_state=42
)

# ── base models ────────────────────────────────────────────
models = {
    "TabICL": TabICLRegressor(),
    "RidgeCV": RidgeCV(),
}

results = {}
for name, reg in models.items():
    start = time()
    conf = ns.PredictionInterval(reg, level=95)
    conf.fit(X_train, y_train)
    pi = conf.predict(X_test, return_pi=True)
    print(f"{name:10s}  time={time() - start:.1f}s")

    coverage = np.mean((pi.lower <= y_test) & (pi.upper >= y_test))
    width    = np.mean(pi.upper - pi.lower)
    rmse     = np.sqrt(mean_squared_error(y_test, pi.mean))

    results[name] = {"pi": pi, "coverage": coverage,
                     "width": width, "rmse": rmse}
    print(f"{name:10s}  RMSE={rmse:.1f}  "
          f"coverage={coverage:.3f}  avg_width={width:.1f}")

# ── plot side-by-side ──────────────────────────────────────
fig, axes = plt.subplots(1, 2, figsize=(12, 4), sharey=True)
colors = {"TabICL": "orange", "RidgeCV": "steelblue"}
max_idx = 50

for ax, (name, res) in zip(axes, results.items()):
    pi = res["pi"]
    x  = range(max_idx)
    ax.fill_between(x, pi.lower[:max_idx], pi.upper[:max_idx],
                     alpha=0.35, color=colors[name], label="95% PI")
    ax.plot(x, pi.mean[:max_idx], "k--", lw=1.5, label="predicted")
    ax.plot(x, y_test[:max_idx], "k.", ms=6, alpha=0.4, label="observed")
    ax.set_title(
        f"{name}  |  cov={res['coverage']:.3f}  width={res['width']:.1f}"
    )
    ax.legend(size=8)

plt.suptitle("Conformalized TabICL vs RidgeCV — diabetes dataset")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Checkpoint 'tabicl-regressor-v2-20260212.ckpt' not cached.
 Downloading from Hugging Face Hub (jingang/TabICL).




tabicl-regressor-v2-20260212.ckpt:   0%|          | 0.00/114M [00:00<?, ?B/s]


TabICL      time=21.8s
TabICL      RMSE=54.4  coverage=0.955  avg_width=226.1
RidgeCV     time=0.0s
RidgeCV     RMSE=53.9  coverage=0.955  avg_width=211.5

2 – R version

 %load_ext rpy2.ipython # in a Colab notebook, use this

%R install.packages("reticulate")

%%R  # in Colab/Jupyter with rpy2; remove this line for pure R

library(reticulate)

# pip install tabicl nnetsauce scikit-learn matplotlib numpy

sklearn_ds  <- import("sklearn.datasets")
sklearn_ms  <- import("sklearn.model_selection")
sklearn_m   <- import("sklearn.metrics")
sklearn_lm  <- import("sklearn.linear_model")
tabicl      <- import("tabicl")
ns          <- import("nnetsauce")
np          <- import("numpy")
plt         <- import("matplotlib.pyplot")

# ── data ───────────────────────────────────────────────────
d       <- sklearn_ds$load_diabetes(return_X_y = TRUE)
X <- d[[1]]; y <- d[[2]]
sp      <- sklearn_ms$train_test_split(X, y,
             test_size = 0.2, random_state = 42L)
X_train <- sp[[1]]; X_test <- sp[[2]]
y_train <- sp[[3]]; y_test <- sp[[4]]

# ── helper: fit + evaluate ─────────────────────────────────
eval_model <- function(reg, name) {
  conf <- ns$PredictionInterval(reg, level = 95L)
  conf$fit(X_train, y_train)
  pi   <- conf$predict(X_test, return_pi = TRUE)

  cov  <- np$mean((pi$lower <= y_test) * (pi$upper >= y_test))
  wid  <- np$mean(pi$upper - pi$lower)
  rmse <- sqrt(sklearn_m$mean_squared_error(y_test, pi$mean))

  cat(sprintf("%-10s  RMSE=%.1f  coverage=%.3f  avg_width=%.1f\n",
              name, rmse, cov, wid))
  invisible(pi)
}

# ── run both models ────────────────────────────────────────
pi_tabicl  <- eval_model(tabicl$TabICLRegressor(),  "TabICL")
pi_ridge   <- eval_model(sklearn_lm$RidgeCV(),       "RidgeCV")

# ── plot ───────────────────────────────────────────────────
max_idx <- 50L
x_range <- np$array(0:(max_idx - 1))

plot_pi <- function(pi, title, col) {
  x_fill <- np$concatenate(list(x_range, x_range[max_idx:1]))
  y_fill <- np$concatenate(list(
    pi$upper[1:max_idx], pi$lower[max_idx:1]))
  plt$fill(x_fill, y_fill, alpha=0.35, fc=col, ec="None", label="95% PI")
  plt$plot(x_range, pi$mean[1:max_idx], "k--", lw=1.5, label="predicted")
  plt$plot(x_range, y_test[1:max_idx], "k.", ms=6L, alpha=0.4, label="observed")
  plt$title(title); plt$legend(size=8L)
}

fig <- plt$figure(figsize=c(12, 4))
plt$subplot(1L, 2L, 1L); plot_pi(pi_tabicl, "Conformalized TabICL", "orange")
plt$subplot(1L, 2L, 2L); plot_pi(pi_ridge,  "Conformalized RidgeCV", "steelblue")
plt$suptitle("Conformalized TabICL vs RidgeCV — diabetes dataset")
plt$tight_layout()
plt$show()

    WARNING: The R package "reticulate" only fixed recently
    an issue that caused a segfault when used with rpy2:
    https://github.com/rstudio/reticulate/pull/1188
    Make sure that you use a version of that package that includes
    the fix.
    TabICL      RMSE=54.4  coverage=0.955  avg_width=226.1
RidgeCV     RMSE=53.9  coverage=0.955  avg_width=211.5

Probably a dataset that’s too easy for a Transformer. Conformalizing simple models helps them, in general, to obtain coverage rates close to the nominal level, as we see for RidgeCV here.