diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 1cf0812..8e42c35 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -7,6 +7,17 @@ RUN apt-get update && \
     apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends gcc g++ && \
     rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
 
+# Build numpy from source with no fixed SIMD baseline. The PyPI wheels for
+# numpy >= 2.4 are compiled for x86-64-v2 (SSE4.2/POPCNT) and refuse to import
+# on the VFB Rancher/k8s hosts, whose QEMU "qemu64" CPU model does not expose
+# those flags. cpu-baseline=none keeps every SIMD path as a runtime-dispatched
+# option (X86_V2/V3/V4 are still used where the CPU has them), so there is no
+# speed cost on modern hosts. Installed first so pip treats the numpy
+# requirement from vfb_connect/pandas as already satisfied.
+ARG NUMPY_SPEC=numpy
+RUN pip install --no-cache-dir --no-binary numpy \
+        -Csetup-args=-Dcpu-baseline=none "${NUMPY_SPEC}"
+
 # Install Python deps first (layer caching)
 COPY requirements.txt setup.py pyproject.toml README.md ./
 COPY src/ src/