Accelerator-optimized machine family

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The accelerator-optimized machine family feature NVIDIA's new Ampere A100 GPUs and is a new machine family available on Compute Engine. Machine types in this family are optimized for massively parallelized Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) workloads, such as machine learning (ML) and high performance computing (HPC).

The A2 machine series is available in A2 standard and A2 ultra machine types. These machines have 12 to 96 vCPUs, and up to 1360 GB of memory. Each A2 machine type has a fixed number of GPUs attached.

You can attach up to 257 TB of persistent disk storage to these machine types in this series for applications that require higher storage performance.

Machine Workloads
A2 standard machine types
  • CUDA-enabled ML training and inference
  • HPC
  • Massive parallelized computation
A2 ultra machine types
  • CUDA-enabled ML training and inference
  • HPC
  • Massive parallelized computation
  • BERT natural language processing
  • Deep learning recommendation model (DLRM)

In summary, the A2 machine series provides the following features:

  • 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 Terabytes per second. 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.
  • Computing speed— Offers up to 10x improvements in computing speed when compared to previous generation NVIDIA V100 GPUs.
  • High performance network bandwidth of up to 100 Gbps.
  • Virtualization optimizations.
  • Next generation NVIDIA A100 GPUs. Available in both A100 40GB and A100 80GB options.
  • Local SSD support— This can be used as fast scratch disks or for feeding data into the A100 GPUs while preventing I/O bottlenecks.
    • For the A2 standard machine types, you can add up to 3 TB of local SSD.
    • For A2 ultra machine types, local SSD is bundled with the machine.

A2 standard machine series

These machine types have a fixed number of A100 40GB GPUs.

Machine types GPU count vCPUs* Memory (GB) Max number of persistent disks (PDs)† Max total PD size (TB) Local SSD Maximum egress bandwidth (Gbps)‡
a2-highgpu-1g 1 12 85 128 257 Yes 24
a2-highgpu-2g 2 24 170 128 257 Yes 32
a2-highgpu-4g 4 48 340 128 257 Yes 50
a2-highgpu-8g 8 96 680 128 257 Yes 100
a2-megagpu-16g 16 96 1360 128 257 Yes 100

*A vCPU is implemented as a single hardware hyper-thread on one of the available CPU platforms.
†Persistent disk usage is charged separately from machine type pricing.
‡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 machine series

These machine types have a fixed number of A100 80GB GPUs. Each A2 ultra machine also comes with up to 3 TB of local SSD attached.

Machine types GPU count vCPUs* Memory (GB) Max number of persistent disks (PDs)† Max total PD size (TB) Bundled Local SSD Maximum egress bandwidth (Gbps)‡
a2-ultragpu-1g 1 12 170 128 257 375 GB 24
a2-ultragpu-2g 2 24 340 128 257 750 GB 32
a2-ultragpu-4g 4 48 680 128 257 1.5 TB 50
a2-ultragpu-8g 8 96 1360 128 257 3 TB 100

*A vCPU is implemented as a single hardware hyper-thread on one of the available CPU platforms.
†Persistent disk usage is charged separately from machine type pricing.
‡Maximum egress bandwidth cannot exceed the number given. Actual egress bandwidth depends on the destination IP address and other factors. See Network bandwidth.

Limitations

  • You can't use regional persistent disks with the A2 machine series.
  • The A2 machine series is only available in certain regions and zones.
  • a2-megagpu-16g machine types are not supported on Windows operating systems. When using Windows operating systems, choose a different machine type.
  • The A2 machine series is only available on the Cascade Lake platform.

  • The A2 ultra machine series has the following limitations:

    • You can't change the machine type for a VM that uses the A2 ultra machine series. If you need to use a different A2 ultra machine series, or any other machine series such as A2 standard or N1, you must create a new VM.

    • You can't change any other machine series to an A2 ultra machine series. If you need to create a VM that uses an A2 ultra machine series, you must create a new VM.

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