The accelerator-optimized machine family is designed by Google Cloud to deliver the needed performance and efficiency for GPU accelerated workloads such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and high performance computing (HPC).
The accelerator-optimized machine family is available in the following machine series: A4, A3, A2 and G2. Each machine type within a series has a specific model and number of NVIDIA GPUs attached. You can also attach some GPU models to N1 general-purpose machine types.
Machine series recommendation by workload type
The following section provide the recommended machine series based on your GPU workloads.
| Workload type | Recommended machine type or series |
|---|---|
| Pre-training models | A4, A3 Ultra, A3 Mega, A3 High, A2 To identify the best fit, see Recommendations for pre-training models in the AI Hypercomputer documentation. |
| Fine-tuning models | A4, A3 Ultra, A3 Mega, A3 High, A2 To identify the best fit, see Recommendations for fine-tuning models in the AI Hypercomputer documentation. |
| Serving inference | A4, A3 Ultra, A3 Mega, A3 High, A2 To identify the best fit, see Recommendations for serving inference in the AI Hypercomputer documentation. |
| Graphics-intensive workloads | G2, N1+T4 |
| High performance computing | For high performance computing workloads, any accelerator-optimized machine
series works well. The best fit depends on the amount of computation that must
be offloaded to the GPU. For more information, see Recommendations for HPC in the AI Hypercomputer documentation. |
Pricing and provisioning options
The accelerator-optimized machine types are billed for their attached GPUs, predefined vCPU, memory, and bundled Local SSD (if applicable). The discounts that can apply to accelerator-optimized instances vary based on the provisioning option that you use as summarized in the following table. For more pricing information for accelerator-optimized instances, see the Accelerator-optimized machine type family section on the VM instance pricing page.
| On-demand (default) | Reservations | Spot VMs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supported accelerator-optimized machine series | All except A4 and A3 Ultra | Varies based on the type of reservation:
|
All |
| Discounts | You can receive committed use discounts (CUDs) for some resources by purchasing resource-based commitments. However, GPUs and Local SSD disks that you use with on-demand provisioning option aren't eligible for CUDs. If you want to receive CUDs even for GPUs and Local SSD disks, then we recommend using the reservations provisioning option instead. |
You can receive CUDs for your accelerator-optimized machine type resources by purchasing resource-based commitments. Note that commitments for any GPUs and Local SSD disks require attached reservations for those resources. |
Spot VMs automatically get discounts through Spot VMs pricing. |
The A4 machine series
The A4 machine series offers machine types with up to 224 vCPUs, and 3,968 GB of memory. A4 provides up to 3x performance of previous GPU instance types for most GPU accelerated workloads. A4 is especially recommended for ML training workloads at large scales—for example, hundreds or thousands of GPUs.
The A4 machine series also provides the following features:
Attached GPUs: NVIDIA B200 GPUs attached, which offers 180 GB GPU memory per GPU.
CPU Platform: 5th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor (Emerald Rapids) and offers up to 4.0 GHz sustained single-core max turbo frequency. For more information about this processor, see CPU platform.
Industry-leading NVLink scale: NVIDIA B200 GPUs provide GPU NVLink bandwidth of 1,800 GBps, bidirectionally per GPU.
With all-to-all NVLink topology between 8 GPUs in a system, the aggregate NVLink Bandwidth is up to 14.4 TBps.
Network protocols: For this machine type, RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) increases the network performance by combining NVIDIA ConnectX-7 network interface cards (NICs) with Google's datacenter-wide four-way rail-aligned network. By leveraging RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), the A4 machines achieve much higher throughput between VMs in a cluster when compared to A3 accelerator-optimized machine types except A3 Ultra.
Improved computing speed and networking: Offers up to 4x networking speeds when compared to the generation A2 machine series.
For more information about networking, see Network bandwidths and GPUs.
Virtualization optimizations: The Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) topology of A4 VMs provides more accurate locality information that workloads can use to optimize data transfers.
The GPUs also expose Function Level Reset (FLR) for graceful recovery from failures and atomic operations support for concurrency improvements in certain scenarios.
Storage: Local SSD can be used for fast scratch disks or for feeding data into the GPUs while preventing I/O bottlenecks. 12,000 GiB of Local SSD is automatically added to A4 VMs.
You can also attach up to 512 TiB of Hyperdisk to machine types in this series for applications that require higher storage performance.
Dense allocation and topology aware scheduling support: When you provision A4 machines that use the features and services available from Cluster Director, you can request blocks of densely allocated capacity. Your host machines are allocated physically close to each other, provisioned as blocks of resources, and are interconnected with a dynamic ML network fabric to minimize network hops and optimize for the lowest latency. Additionally, you can get topology information at node and cluster level that can be used for job placement.
The following machine types are available for the A4 machine series.
A4 machine type
| Machine type | GPU count | GPU memory* (GB HBM3e) |
vCPU count† | VM memory (GB) | Attached Local SSD (GiB) | Physical NIC count | Maximum network bandwidth (Gbps)‡ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a4-highgpu-8g |
8 | 1,440 | 224 | 3,968 | 12,000 | 10 | 3,600 |
*GPU memory is the memory on a GPU device that can be used for
temporary storage of data. It is separate from the VM's memory and is
specifically designed to handle the higher bandwidth demands of your
graphics-intensive workloads.
†A vCPU is implemented as a single hardware hyper-thread on one of
the available CPU platforms.
‡Maximum egress bandwidth cannot exceed the number given. Actual
egress bandwidth depends on the destination IP address and other factors.
See Network bandwidth.
A4 limitations
- You can only request capacity by using the supported provisioning options for an A4 machine type.
- You don't receive sustained use discounts and flexible committed use discounts for VMs that use an A4 machine type.
- You can only use an A4 machine type in certain regions and zones.
- You can't use Persistent Disk (regional or zonal) on a VM that use A4 machine type.
- The A4 machine type is only available on the Emerald Rapids CPU platform.
- You can't change the machine type of an A4 machine type VM. If you need to change the machine type, you must create a new VM.
- You can't change the machine type of a VM to an A4 machine type. If you need a VM that uses an A4 machine type, you must create a new VM.
- A4 machine types don't support sole-tenancy.
- You can't run Windows operating systems on an A4 machine type.
Supported disk types for the A4 series
| Maximum number of disks per VM* | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Machine types | All disks† | Hyperdisk Balanced | Hyperdisk Throughput | Hyperdisk ML | Hyperdisk Extreme | Attached Local SSD |
a4-highgpu-8g |
128 | 128 | N/A | N/A | 8 | 32 |
*Hyperdisk usage is charged separately from
machine type pricing. For disk pricing, see
Hyperdisk pricing.
†This limit applies to Hyperdisk, but doesn't include
Local SSD disks.
Disk and capacity limits
If supported by the machine type, you can use a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes on a VM, but the following restrictions apply:
- The combined number of both Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes can't exceed 128 per VM.
The maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all disk types can't exceed:
For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs:
- 257 TiB for all Hyperdisk or all Persistent Disk
- 257 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk
For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs:
- 512 TiB for all Hyperdisk
- 512 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk
- 257 TiB for all Persistent Disk
For details about the capacity limits, see Hyperdisk capacity limits per VM and Persistent Disk maximum capacity.
The A3 machine series
The A3 machine series has up to 224 vCPUs, and 2,944 GB of memory. This machine series is optimized for compute and memory intensive, network bound ML training, and HPC workloads.
The A3 machine series also provides the following features:
| Feature | A3 Ultra | A3 Mega, High, Edge |
|---|---|---|
| Attached GPUs | NVIDIA H200 SXM GPUs attached, which offers 141 GB GPU memory per GPU and provides larger and faster memory for supporting large language models and HPC workloads. |
NVIDIA H100 SXM GPUs attached, which offers 80 GB GPU memory per GPU and is ideal for large transformer-based language models, databases, and HPC. |
| CPU platform | 5th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor (Emerald Rapids) and offers up to 4.0 GHz sustained single-core max turbo frequency. For more information about this processor, see CPU platform. |
4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor (Sapphire Rapids) and offers up to 3.3 GHz sustained single-core max turbo frequency. For more information about this processor, see CPU platform. |
| Industry-leading NVLink scale | NVIDIA H200 GPUs provide peak GPU NVLink bandwidth of 900 GB/s, unidirectionally. With all-to-all NVLink topology between 8 GPUs in a system, the aggregate NVLink Bandwidth is up to 7.2 TB/s. |
NVIDIA H100 GPUs provide peak GPU NVLink bandwidth of 450 GB/s, unidirectionally. With all-to-all NVLink topology between 8 GPUs in a system, the aggregate NVLink Bandwidth is up to 7.2 TB/s. |
| Network protocols | For this machine type, RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) increases the network performance by
combining
NVIDIA ConnectX-7 network interface cards (NICs) with our
datacenter-wide four-way rail-aligned network. By leveraging RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE),
the a3-ultragpu-8g machine type achieves much higher
throughput between VMs in a cluster when compared to other
A3 accelerator-optimized machine types.
|
|
| Improved computing speed and networking | Offers up to 4x networking speeds when compared to the previous generation A2 machine series. For more information about networking, see Network bandwidths and GPUs. |
Offers up to 2.5X networking speeds when compared to the previous generation A2 machine series. For more information about networking, see Network bandwidths and GPUs. |
| Virtualization optimizations | The Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) topology of A3 VMs provides more accurate locality information that workloads can use to optimize data transfers. The GPUs also expose Function Level Reset (FLR) for graceful recovery from failures and atomic operations support for concurrency improvements in certain scenarios. |
|
| Storage |
Local SSD can be used for fast scratch disks or for feeding data into the GPUs while preventing I/O bottlenecks. Local SSD is attached as follows:
You can also attach up to 512 TiB of Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk to machine types in these series for applications that require higher storage performance. |
|
| Compact placement policy support | Provides you with more control over the physical placement of your VMs within data centers. This enables lower-latency and higher bandwidth for VM placement within a single availability zone. For more information, see About compact placement policies. |
|
The following machine types are available for the A3 machine series.
A3 Ultra machine type
| Machine type | GPU count | GPU memory* (GB HBM3e) |
vCPU count† | VM memory (GB) | Attached Local SSD (GiB) | Physical NIC count | Maximum network bandwidth (Gbps)‡ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a3-ultragpu-8g |
8 | 1128 | 224 | 2,952 | 12,000 | 10 | 3,600 |
*GPU memory is the memory on a GPU device that can be used for
temporary storage of data. It is separate from the VM's memory and is
specifically designed to handle the higher bandwidth demands of your
graphics-intensive workloads.
†A vCPU is implemented as a single hardware hyper-thread on one of
the available CPU platforms.
‡Maximum egress bandwidth cannot exceed the number given. Actual
egress bandwidth depends on the destination IP address and other factors.
See Network bandwidth.
A3 Ultra limitations
- You can only request capacity by using the supported provisioning options for an A3 Ultra machine type.
- You don't receive sustained use discounts and flexible committed use discounts for VMs that use an A3 Ultra machine type.
- You can only use an A3 Ultra machine type in certain regions and zones.
- You can't use Persistent Disk (regional or zonal) on a VM that use A3 Ultra machine type.
- The A3 Ultra machine type is only available on the Emerald Rapids CPU platform.
- You can't change the machine type of an A3 Ultra machine type VM. If you need to change the machine type, you must create a new VM.
- You can't change the machine type of a VM to an A3 Ultra machine type. If you need a VM that uses an A3 Ultra machine type, you must create a new VM.
- A3 Ultra machine types don't support sole-tenancy.
- You can't run Windows operating systems on an A3 Ultra machine type.
A3 Mega machine type
| Machine type | GPU count | GPU memory* (GB HBM3) |
vCPU count† | VM memory (GB) | Attached Local SSD (GiB) | Physical NIC count | Maximum network bandwidth (Gbps)‡ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a3-megagpu-8g |
8 | 640 | 208 | 1,872 | 6,000 | 9 | 1,800 |
*GPU memory is the memory on a GPU device that can be used for
temporary storage of data. It is separate from the VM's memory and is
specifically designed to handle the higher bandwidth demands of your
graphics-intensive workloads.
†A vCPU is implemented as a single hardware hyper-thread on one of
the available CPU platforms.
‡Maximum egress bandwidth cannot exceed the number given. Actual
egress bandwidth depends on the destination IP address and other factors.
See Network bandwidth.
A3 Mega limitations
- You can only request capacity by using the supported provisioning options for an A3 Mega machine type.
- You don't receive sustained use discounts and flexible committed use discounts for VMs that use an A3 Mega machine type.
- You can only use an A3 Mega machine type in certain regions and zones.
- You can't use regional Persistent Disk on a VM that use A3 Mega machine type.
- The A3 Mega machine type is only available on the Sapphire Rapids CPU platform.
- You can't change the machine type of an A3 Mega machine type VM. If you need to change the machine type, you must create a new VM.
- You can't change the machine type of a VM to an A3 Mega machine type. If you need a VM that uses an A3 Mega machine type, you must create a new VM.
- A3 Mega machine types don't support sole-tenancy.
- You can't run Windows operating systems on an A3 Mega machine type.
A3 High machine type
| Machine type | GPU count | GPU memory* (GB HBM3) |
vCPU count† | VM memory (GB) | Attached Local SSD (GiB) | Physical NIC count | Maximum network bandwidth (Gbps)‡ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a3-highgpu-1g |
1 | 80 | 26 | 234 | 750 | 1 | 25 |
a3-highgpu-2g |
2 | 160 | 52 | 468 | 1,500 | 1 | 50 |
a3-highgpu-4g |
4 | 320 | 104 | 936 | 3,000 | 1 | 100 |
a3-highgpu-8g |
8 | 640 | 208 | 1,872 | 6,000 | 5 | 1,000 |
*GPU memory is the memory on a GPU device that can be used for
temporary storage of data. It is separate from the VM's memory and is
specifically designed to handle the higher bandwidth demands of your
graphics-intensive workloads.
†A vCPU is implemented as a single hardware hyper-thread on one of
the available CPU platforms.
‡Maximum egress bandwidth cannot exceed the number given. Actual
egress bandwidth depends on the destination IP address and other factors.
See Network bandwidth.
A3 High limitations
- You can only request capacity by using the supported provisioning options for an A3 High machine type.
- You don't receive sustained use discounts and flexible committed use discounts for VMs that use an A3 High machine type.
- You can only use an A3 High machine type in certain regions and zones.
- You can't use regional Persistent Disk on a VM that uses A3 High machine type.
- The A3 High machine type is only available on the Sapphire Rapids CPU platform.
- You can't change the machine type of an A3 High machine type VM. If you need to change the machine type, you must create a new VM.
- You can't change the machine type of a VM to an A3 High machine type. If you need a VM that uses an A3 High machine type, you must create a new VM.
- A3 High machine types don't support sole-tenancy.
- You can't run Windows operating systems on an A3 High machine type.
- For
a3-highgpu-1g,a3-highgpu-2g, anda3-highgpu-4gmachine types, the following limitations apply:-
For these machine types,
you must either use Spot VMs or a feature that uses the
Dynamic Workload Scheduler (DWS)
such as resize requests in a MIG. For detailed instructions on either of these options, review the
following:
- To create Spot VMs, see
Create an accelerator-optimized VM
and remember to set the provisiong model to
SPOT - To create a resize request in a MIG, which uses Dynamic Workload Scheduler, see Create a MIG with GPU VMs.
- To create Spot VMs, see
Create an accelerator-optimized VM
and remember to set the provisiong model to
- You can't use Hyperdisk Balanced with these machine types.
- You can't create reservations.
-
For these machine types,
you must either use Spot VMs or a feature that uses the
Dynamic Workload Scheduler (DWS)
such as resize requests in a MIG. For detailed instructions on either of these options, review the
following:
A3 Edge machine type
| Machine type | GPU count | GPU memory* (GB HBM3) |
vCPU count† | VM memory (GB) | Attached Local SSD (GiB) | Physical NIC count | Maximum network bandwidth (Gbps)‡ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a3-edgegpu-8g |
8 | 640 | 208 | 1,872 | 6,000 | 5 |
|
*GPU memory is the memory on a GPU device that can be used for
temporary storage of data. It is separate from the VM's memory and is
specifically designed to handle the higher bandwidth demands of your
graphics-intensive workloads.
†A vCPU is implemented as a single hardware hyper-thread on one of
the available CPU platforms.
‡Maximum egress bandwidth cannot exceed the number given. Actual
egress bandwidth depends on the destination IP address and other factors.
See Network bandwidth.
A3 Edge limitations
- You can only request capacity by using the supported provisioning options for an A3 Edge machine type.
- You don't receive sustained use discounts and flexible committed use discounts for VMs that use an A3 Edge machine type.
- You can only use an A3 Edge machine type in certain regions and zones.
- You can't use regional Persistent Disk on a VM that use A3 Edge machine type.
- The A3 Edge machine type is only available on the Sapphire Rapids CPU platform.
- You can't change the machine type of an A3 Edge machine type VM. If you need to change the machine type, you must create a new VM.
- You can't change the machine type of a VM to an A3 Edge machine type. If you need a VM that uses an A3 Edge machine type, you must create a new VM.
- A3 Edge machine types don't support sole-tenancy.
- You can't run Windows operating systems on an A3 Edge machine type.
Supported disk types for the A3 series
A3 Ultra
A3 Ultra VMs can use the following block storage types:
- Hyperdisk Balanced (
hyperdisk-balanced): this is the only disk type that is supported for the boot disk - Hyperdisk Extreme (
hyperdisk-extreme) - Local SSD: which is automatically added to VMs that are created by using any of the A3 machine types
| Maximum number of disks per VM* | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Machine types |
All disks† | Hyperdisk Balanced | Hyperdisk Throughput | Hyperdisk ML | Hyperdisk Extreme | Attached Local SSD disks |
a3-ultragpu-8g |
128 | 128 | N/A | N/A | 8 | 32 |
*Hyperdisk usage is charged separately from
machine type pricing. For disk pricing, see
Hyperdisk pricing.
†This limit applies to Hyperdisk, but doesn't include
Local SSD disks.
A3 Mega
A3 Mega VMs can use the following block storage types:
- Balanced Persistent Disk (
pd-balanced) - SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (
pd-ssd) - Hyperdisk Balanced (
hyperdisk-balanced) - Hyperdisk ML (
hyperdisk-ml) - Hyperdisk Extreme (
hyperdisk-extreme) - Hyperdisk Throughput (
hyperdisk-throughput) - Local SSD: which is automatically added to VMs that are created by using any of the A3 machine types
| Maximum number of disks per VM* | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Machine types |
All disks† | Hyperdisk Balanced | Hyperdisk Throughput | Hyperdisk ML | Hyperdisk Extreme | Attached Local SSD disks |
a3-megagpu-8g |
128 | 32 | 64 | 64 | 8 | 16 |
*Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk usage are charged separately from
machine type pricing. For disk pricing, see
Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk pricing.
†This limit applies to Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk, but doesn't include
Local SSD disks.
A3 High
A3 High VMs can use the following block storage types:
- Balanced Persistent Disk (
pd-balanced) - SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (
pd-ssd) - Hyperdisk Balanced (
hyperdisk-balanced): only supported fora3-highgpu-8g - Hyperdisk ML (
hyperdisk-ml) - Hyperdisk Extreme (
hyperdisk-extreme) - Hyperdisk Throughput (
hyperdisk-throughput) - Local SSD: which is automatically added to VMs that are created by using any of the A3 machine types
| Maximum number of disks per VM* | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Machine types |
All disks† | Hyperdisk Balanced | Hyperdisk Throughput | Hyperdisk ML | Hyperdisk Extreme | Attached Local SSD disks |
a3-highgpu-1g |
128 | N/A | 64 | 64 | N/A | 2 |
a3-highgpu-2g |
128 | N/A | 64 | 64 | N/A | 4 |
a3-highgpu-4g |
128 | N/A | 64 | 64 | 8 | 8 |
a3-highgpu-8g |
128 | 32 | 64 | 64 | 8 | 16 |
*Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk usage are charged separately from
machine type pricing. For disk pricing, see
Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk pricing.
†This limit applies to Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk, but doesn't include
Local SSD disks.
A3 Edge
A3 Edge VMs can use the following block storage types:
- Balanced Persistent Disk (
pd-balanced) - SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (
pd-ssd) - Hyperdisk Balanced (
hyperdisk-balanced) - Hyperdisk ML (
hyperdisk-ml) - Hyperdisk Extreme (
hyperdisk-extreme) - Hyperdisk Throughput (
hyperdisk-throughput) - Local SSD: which is automatically added to VMs that are created by using any of the A3 machine types
| Maximum number of disks per VM* | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Machine types | All disks† | Hyperdisk Balanced | Hyperdisk Throughput | Hyperdisk ML | Hyperdisk Extreme | Attached Local SSD |
a3-edgegpu-8g |
128 | 32 | 64 | 64 | 8 | 16 |
*Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk usage are charged separately from
machine type pricing. For disk pricing, see
Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk pricing.
†This limit applies to Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk, but doesn't include
Local SSD disks.
Disk and capacity limits
If supported by the machine type, you can use a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes on a VM, but the following restrictions apply:
- The combined number of both Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes can't exceed 128 per VM.
The maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all disk types can't exceed:
For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs:
- 257 TiB for all Hyperdisk or all Persistent Disk
- 257 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk
For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs:
- 512 TiB for all Hyperdisk
- 512 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk
- 257 TiB for all Persistent Disk
For details about the capacity limits, see Hyperdisk capacity limits per VM and Persistent Disk maximum capacity.
The A2 machine series
The A2 machine series is available in A2 Standard and A2 Ultra machine types. These machine types have 12 to 96 vCPUs, and up to 1,360 GB of memory.
The A2 machine series also provides the following features:
NVIDIA GPUs attached: each A2 machine type has NVIDIA A100 GPUs. These are available in both A100 40GB and A100 80GB options.
Industry-leading NVLink scale that provides peak GPU to GPU NVLink bandwidth of 600 GBps. For example, systems with 16 GPUs have an aggregate NVLink bandwidth of up to 9.6 TBps. These 16 GPUs can be used as a single high performance accelerator with unified memory space to deliver up to 10 petaFLOPS of compute power and up to 20 petaFLOPS of inference compute power that can be used for artificial intelligence, deep learning, and machine learning workloads.
Improved Computing speed: the attached NVIDIA A100 GPUs offer up to 10x improvements in computing speed when compared to previous generation NVIDIA V100 GPUs.
With the A2 machine series, you can get up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth.
Storage: for fast scratch disks or for feeding data into the GPUs while preventing I/O bottlenecks, the A2 machine types support Local SSD as follows:
- For the A2 Standard machine types, you can add up to 3,000 GiB of Local SSD.
- For the A2 Ultra machine types, Local SSD is automatically attached when you create the VM.
You can also attach up to 257 TiB of Persistent Disk storage to A2 VMs for applications that require this higher storage performance.
Compact placement policy support: provides you with more control over the physical placement of your VMs within data centers. This enables lower-latency and higher bandwidth for VM placement within a single availability zone. For more information, see Reduce latency by using compact placement policies.
A2 Ultra machine types
These machine types have a fixed number of A100 80GB GPUs. Local SSD is automatically attached to VMs created by using the A2 Ultra machine types.
| Machine type | GPU count | GPU memory* (GB HBM3) |
vCPU count† | VM memory (GB) | Attached Local SSD (GiB) | Maximum network bandwidth (Gbps)‡ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a2-ultragpu-1g |
1 | 80 | 12 | 170 | 375 | 24 |
a2-ultragpu-2g |
2 | 160 | 24 | 340 | 750 | 32 |
a2-ultragpu-4g |
4 | 320 | 48 | 680 | 1,500 | 50 |
a2-ultragpu-8g |
8 | 640 | 96 | 1,360 | 3,000 | 100 |
*GPU memory is the memory on a GPU device that can be used for
temporary storage of data. It is separate from the VM's memory and is
specifically designed to handle the higher bandwidth demands of your
graphics-intensive workloads.
†A vCPU is implemented as a single hardware hyper-thread on one of
the available CPU platforms.
‡Maximum egress bandwidth cannot exceed the number given. Actual
egress bandwidth depends on the destination IP address and other factors.
See Network bandwidth.
A2 Ultra limitations
- You can only request capacity by using the supported provisioning options for an A2 Ultra machine type.
- You don't receive sustained use discounts and flexible committed use discounts for VMs that use an A2 Ultra machine type.
- You can only use an A2 Ultra machine type in certain regions and zones.
- The A2 Ultra machine type is only available on the Cascade Lake platform.
- If your VM uses an A2 Ultra machine type, you can't change the machine type. If you need to use a different A2 Ultra machine type, or any other machine type, you must create a new VM.
- You can't change any other machine type to an A2 Ultra machine type. If you need a VM that uses an A2 Ultra machine type, you must create a new VM.
- You can't do a quick format of the attached Local SSDs on Windows VMs that use A2 Ultra
machine types. To format these Local SSDs, you must do a full format by using the diskpart
utility and specifying
format fs=ntfs label=tmpfs.
A2 Standard machine types
These machine types have a fixed number of A100 40GB GPUs.
| Machine type | GPU count | GPU memory* (GB HBM3) |
vCPU count† | VM memory (GB) | Attached Local SSD (GiB) | Maximum network bandwidth (Gbps)‡ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a2-highgpu-1g |
1 | 40 | 12 | 85 | Yes | 24 |
a2-highgpu-2g |
2 | 80 | 24 | 170 | Yes | 32 |
a2-highgpu-4g |
4 | 160 | 48 | 340 | Yes | 50 |
a2-highgpu-8g |
8 | 320 | 96 | 680 | Yes | 100 |
a2-megagpu-16g |
16 | 640 | 96 | 1,360 | Yes | 100 |
*GPU memory is the memory on a GPU device that can be used for
temporary storage of data. It is separate from the VM's memory and is
specifically designed to handle the higher bandwidth demands of your
graphics-intensive workloads.
†A vCPU is implemented as a single hardware hyper-thread on one of
the available CPU platforms.
‡Maximum egress bandwidth cannot exceed the number given. Actual
egress bandwidth depends on the destination IP address and other factors.
See Network bandwidth.
A2 Standard limitations
- You can only request capacity by using the supported provisioning options for an A2 Standard machine type.
- You don't receive sustained use discounts and flexible committed use discounts for VMs that use an A2 Standard machine type.
- You can only use an A2 Standard machine type in certain regions and zones.
- The A2 Standard machine type is only available on the Cascade Lake platform.
- If your VM uses an A2 Standard machine type, you can only switch from one A2 Standard machine type to another A2 Standard machine type. You can't change to any other machine type. For more information, see Modify accelerator-optmized VMs.
- You can't use the Windows operating system with
- You can't do a quick format of the attached Local SSDs on Windows VMs that use A2 Standard
machine types. To format these Local SSDs, you must do a full format by using the diskpart
utility and specifying
format fs=ntfs label=tmpfs. - A2 Standard machine types don't support sole-tenancy.
Supported disk types for the A2 series
A2 VMs can use the following block storage types:
- Hyperdisk ML (
hyperdisk-ml) - Balanced Persistent Disk (
pd-balanced) - SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (
pd-ssd) - Standard Persistent Disk (
pd-standard) - Local SSD: which is automatically attached to VMs created by using the A2 Ultra machine types.
If supported by the machine type, you can use a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes on a VM, but the following restrictions apply:
- The combined number of both Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes can't exceed 128 per VM.
The maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all disk types can't exceed:
For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs:
- 257 TiB for all Hyperdisk or all Persistent Disk
- 257 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk
For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs:
- 512 TiB for all Hyperdisk
- 512 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk
- 257 TiB for all Persistent Disk
For details about the capacity limits, see Hyperdisk capacity limits per VM and Persistent Disk maximum capacity.
The G2 machine series
The G2 machine series is available in standard machine types that have 4 to 96 vCPUs, and up to 432 GB of memory. This machine series is optimized for inference and graphics workloads.
The G2 machine series also provides the following features:
NVIDIA GPUs attached: each G2 machine type has NVIDIA L4 GPUs.
Improved inference rates: the G2 machine types provide support for the FP8 (8-bit floating point) data type which speeds up ML inference rates and reduces memory requirements.
Next generation graphics performance: NVIDIA L4 GPUs provide up to 3X improvement in graphics performance by using third-generation RT cores and NVIDIA DLSS 3 (Deep Learning Super Sampling) technology.
High performance network bandwidth: with the G2 machine series, you can get up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth.
Storage: you can add up to 3,000 GiB of Local SSD to G2 VMs. This can be used for fast scratch disks or for feeding data into the GPUs while preventing I/O bottlenecks.
You can also attach Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes to G2 VMs, for applications that require more persistent storage. The maximum storage capacity depends on the number of vCPUs the VM has. For details, see Supported disk types.
Compact placement policy support: provides you with more control over the physical placement of your VMs within data centers. This enables lower-latency and higher bandwidth for VM placement within a single availability zone. For more information, see Reduce latency by using compact placement policies.
G2 machine types
Each G2 machine type has a fixed number of NVIDIA L4 GPUs and vCPUs attached. Each G2 machine type also has a default memory and a custom memory range. The custom memory range defines the amount of memory that you can allocate to your VM for each machine type. You can specify your custom memory during VM creation.
| Machine type | GPU count | GPU memory* (GB GDDR6) | vCPU count† | Default VM memory (GB) | Custom VM memory range (GB) | Max Local SSD supported (GiB) | Maximum network bandwidth (Gbps)‡ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
g2-standard-4 |
1 | 24 | 4 | 16 | 16 to 32 | 375 | 10 |
g2-standard-8 |
1 | 24 | 8 | 32 | 32 to 54 | 375 | 16 |
g2-standard-12 |
1 | 24 | 12 | 48 | 48 to 54 | 375 | 16 |
g2-standard-16 |
1 | 24 | 16 | 64 | 54 to 64 | 375 | 32 |
g2-standard-24 |
2 | 48 | 24 | 96 | 96 to 108 | 750 | 32 |
g2-standard-32 |
1 | 24 | 32 | 128 | 96 to 128 | 375 | 32 |
g2-standard-48 |
4 | 96 | 48 | 192 | 192 to 216 | 1,500 | 50 |
g2-standard-96 |
8 | 192 | 96 | 384 | 384 to 432 | 3,000 | 100 |
*GPU memory is the memory on a GPU device that can be used for
temporary storage of data. It is separate from the VM's memory and is
specifically designed to handle the higher bandwidth demands of your
graphics-intensive workloads.
†A vCPU is implemented as a single hardware hyper-thread on one of
the available CPU platforms.
‡Maximum egress bandwidth cannot exceed the number given. Actual
egress bandwidth depends on the destination IP address and other factors.
See Network bandwidth.
G2 limitations
- You can only request capacity by using the supported provisioning options for an G2 machine type.
- You don't receive sustained use discounts and flexible committed use discounts for VMs that use an G2 machine type.
- You can only use an G2 machine type in certain regions and zones.
- The G2 machine type is only available on the Cascade Lake platform.
- Standard Persistent Disk (
pd-standard) is not supported on VMs that use G2 standard machine types. For supported disk types, see Supported disk types for G2. - You can't create Multi-Instance GPUs on G2 machine types.
- If you need to change the machine type of a G2 VM, review Modify accelerator-optmized VMs.
- You can't use Deep Learning VM Images as boot disks for your VMs that use G2 machine types.
- The current default driver for Container-Optimized OS doesn't support L4 GPUs running on
G2 machine types. Container-Optimized OS also only support a select set of drivers.
If you want to use Container-Optimized OS on G2 machine types, review the following notes:
- Use a Container-Optimized OS version that supports the minimum recommended
NVIDIA driver version
525.60.13or later. For more information, review the Container-Optimized OS release notes. - When you install the driver,
specify the latest available version that works for the L4 GPUs.
For example,
sudo cos-extensions install gpu -- -version=525.60.13.
- Use a Container-Optimized OS version that supports the minimum recommended
NVIDIA driver version
- You must use the Google Cloud CLI or REST to
create G2 VMs
for the following scenarios:
- You want to specify custom memory values.
- You want to customize the number of visible CPU cores.
Supported disk types for G2 series
G2 VMs can use the following block storage types:
- Balanced Persistent Disk (
pd-balanced) - SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (
pd-ssd) - Hyperdisk ML (
hyperdisk-ml) - Hyperdisk Throughput (
hyperdisk-throughput) - Local SSD
If supported by the machine type, you can use a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes on a VM, but the following restrictions apply:
- The combined number of both Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes can't exceed 128 per VM.
The maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all disk types can't exceed:
For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs:
- 257 TiB for all Hyperdisk or all Persistent Disk
- 257 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk
For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs:
- 512 TiB for all Hyperdisk
- 512 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk
- 257 TiB for all Persistent Disk
For details about the capacity limits, see Hyperdisk capacity limits per VM and Persistent Disk maximum capacity.