diff --git a/apps/grpo/main.py b/apps/grpo/main.py
index 10ea43d58..693dc8d81 100644
--- a/apps/grpo/main.py
+++ b/apps/grpo/main.py
@@ -210,7 +210,7 @@ class DatasetActor(ForgeActor):
     model: str = "Qwen/Qwen3-1.7B"
 
     @endpoint
-    def setup(self):
+    async def setup(self):
         self._tokenizer = get_tokenizer(self.model)
         self._epoch = 0