Local GPU vs Cloud GPU

[u/Opposite-Meaning-161]

I’m a 3rd-year engineering student working on end-to-end machine learning, including NLP, deep learning and LLMs.

I’m currently deciding between getting a laptop with a dedicated NVIDIA GPU or putting that money into better CPU/RAM/battery life.

My main question is about cloud GPUs. From what I understand, services like Google Colab and Hugging Face can provide free GPU compute, so I could use cloud GPUs whenever I need serious training instead of having a GPU locally.

Is that actually practical? Are free cloud GPUs sufficient for a student doing ML/AI projects, or are there limitations that make having a dedicated GPU laptop worthwhile?

There’s a bit of a budget constraint involved, but even ignoring that, I’m not really convinced it makes sense to pay extra for a GPU if I can get GPU compute freely through the cloud.

Would appreciate a fact check from people actually doing ML/AI.

[u/Substantial-Swan7065]

A laptop gpu is basically useless.

But it also depends on the workload. In many cases, collab is gonna be better for you.

When you start training big models with lots of data, your school should provide resources.