diff --git a/docling/datamodel/accelerator_options.py b/docling/datamodel/accelerator_options.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..1b0ea8cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docling/datamodel/accelerator_options.py
@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+import logging
+import os
+import re
+from enum import Enum
+from typing import Any, Union
+
+from pydantic import field_validator, model_validator
+from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings, SettingsConfigDict
+
+_log = logging.getLogger(__name__)
+
+
+class AcceleratorDevice(str, Enum):
+    """Devices to run model inference"""
+
+    AUTO = "auto"
+    CPU = "cpu"
+    CUDA = "cuda"
+    MPS = "mps"
+
+
+class AcceleratorOptions(BaseSettings):
+    model_config = SettingsConfigDict(
+        env_prefix="DOCLING_", env_nested_delimiter="_", populate_by_name=True
+    )
+
+    num_threads: int = 4
+    device: Union[str, AcceleratorDevice] = "auto"
+    cuda_use_flash_attention2: bool = False
+
+    @field_validator("device")
+    def validate_device(cls, value):
+        # "auto", "cpu", "cuda", "mps", or "cuda:N"
+        if value in {d.value for d in AcceleratorDevice} or re.match(
+            r"^cuda(:\d+)?$", value
+        ):
+            return value
+        raise ValueError(
+            "Invalid device option. Use 'auto', 'cpu', 'mps', 'cuda', or 'cuda:N'."
+        )
+
+    @model_validator(mode="before")
+    @classmethod
+    def check_alternative_envvars(cls, data: Any) -> Any:
+        r"""
+        Set num_threads from the "alternative" envvar OMP_NUM_THREADS.
+        The alternative envvar is used only if it is valid and the regular envvar is not set.
+
+        Notice: The standard pydantic settings mechanism with parameter "aliases" does not provide
+        the same functionality. In case the alias envvar is set and the user tries to override the
+        parameter in settings initialization, Pydantic treats the parameter provided in __init__()
+        as an extra input instead of simply overwriting the evvar value for that parameter.
+        """
+        if isinstance(data, dict):
+            input_num_threads = data.get("num_threads")
+            # Check if to set the num_threads from the alternative envvar
+            if input_num_threads is None:
+                docling_num_threads = os.getenv("DOCLING_NUM_THREADS")
+                omp_num_threads = os.getenv("OMP_NUM_THREADS")
+                if docling_num_threads is None and omp_num_threads is not None:
+                    try:
+                        data["num_threads"] = int(omp_num_threads)
+                    except ValueError:
+                        _log.error(
+                            "Ignoring misformatted envvar OMP_NUM_THREADS '%s'",
+                            omp_num_threads,
+                        )
+        return data