Best Cloud GPU Providers for AWS HPC

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a cloud service that offers flexible and secure computing capabilities. Its primary aim is to simplify large-scale cloud computing for developers. With an easy-to-use web service interface, Amazon EC2 allows users to quickly obtain and configure computing resources with ease. Users gain full control over their computing power while utilizing Amazon’s established computing framework. The service offers an extensive range of compute options, networking capabilities (up to 400 Gbps), and tailored storage solutions that enhance price and performance specifically for machine learning initiatives. Developers can create, test, and deploy macOS workloads on demand. Furthermore, users can scale their capacity dynamically as requirements change, all while benefiting from AWS's pay-as-you-go pricing model. This infrastructure enables rapid access to the necessary resources for high-performance computing (HPC) applications, resulting in enhanced speed and cost efficiency. In essence, Amazon EC2 ensures a secure, dependable, and high-performance computing environment that caters to the diverse demands of modern businesses. Overall, it stands out as a versatile solution for various computing needs across different industries.

The Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) serves as a specialized network interface for Amazon EC2 instances, allowing users to efficiently run applications that demand high inter-node communication at scale within the AWS environment. By utilizing a custom-designed operating system (OS) that circumvents traditional hardware interfaces, EFA significantly boosts the performance of communications between instances, which is essential for effectively scaling such applications. This technology facilitates the scaling of High-Performance Computing (HPC) applications that utilize the Message Passing Interface (MPI) and Machine Learning (ML) applications that rely on the NVIDIA Collective Communications Library (NCCL) to thousands of CPUs or GPUs. Consequently, users can achieve the same high application performance found in on-premises HPC clusters while benefiting from the flexible and on-demand nature of the AWS cloud infrastructure. EFA can be activated as an optional feature for EC2 networking without incurring any extra charges, making it accessible for a wide range of use cases. Additionally, it seamlessly integrates with the most popular interfaces, APIs, and libraries for inter-node communication needs, enhancing its utility for diverse applications.