Google Colaboratory Pro / Pro + will shift to a credit system from September 29, 2022, the upper limit of calculation volume will be made transparent & additional purchases will be possible
Google Colaboratory (Google Colab) is a service provided by Google for machine learning education and research, and you can build a Python or machine learning environment without having to install it locally. It has become a hot topic posted on the social news site Hacker News that an email has been sent from the management that the GPU usage in Google Colab Pro / Pro +, which is the paid version of Google Colab, will shift to a credit system.
Google Colab Pro is switching to compute credits | Hacker News
GPUs are used for machine learning and deep learning calculations, but Google Colab allows calculations using GPUs for free. However, calculations using the GPU are subject to an upper limit, and if the limit is reached after performing a certain amount of calculations, the GPU will not be usable for a while.
This limit also exists in the paid version Google Colab Pro / Pro +, but the GPU usage limit is set higher than the free version. However, it was difficult to know when the upper limit would be reached, as it was not disclosed how long it would be used to hit the GPU usage limit.
According to the text of the email posted on Hacker News, GPU through the computing unit for the purpose of 'updating the terms of service applicable to Google Colab Pro / Pro+ subscriptions and improving usage for customers.' And it is planned to improve transparency by making it possible to grasp the upper limit of the calculation amount of TPU.
The computational cap is determined by this compute unit. With Google Colab Pro / Pro +, a certain number of these computing units are granted in advance, and additional computing units can be purchased as needed. In other words, even if the upper limit of calculation amount is reached, it is possible to continue calculation by purchasing additional units.
In the email, it said, 'The introduction of this computing unit will be applied from September 29, 2022.' ing unit will be released.' Also, it seems that the upper limit of the amount of calculation will be able to be confirmed with the resource monitor.
Google Colab FAQ
https://research.google.com/colaboratory/faq.html#compute-units
Colab will release the compute unit on 09/29/2022.
Compute units let you run your notebooks on high-performance Google Cloud VMs. The amount of access provided by a compute unit depends on the VM configuration and usage of dedicated accelerators such as TPUs and GPUs.
Compute Units are valid for 3 months after purchase.
It seems that the basic content of the provided service will not be changed, just by visualizing the upper limit of the calculation amount and making it possible to purchase additional computing units under the credit system. For the time being, people who have used Google Colab so far can continue to use it with confidence, but if you are interested in details, please check the official Twitter account of Google Colab from time to time.
Colaboratory (@GoogleColab) / Twitter
https://twitter.com/googlecolab
Related Posts:
in Software, Web Service, Posted by log1i_yk