How to Get Free GPU Power for AI Projects: Kaggle, Colab, Baidu AI Studio & Tianchi

Kaggle

Kaggle, the world‑famous competition platform owned by Google, offers a free GPU quota of 12 hours per week on a 16 GB P100 instance with 80 GB storage and 16 GB RAM. The quota used to be loosely enforced but now has stricter risk controls.

Official link: https://www.kaggle.com/

Usage steps

Register a Kaggle account.

In the left sidebar, click to create a new notebook.

Create a Dataset and upload your data.

Start using the free GPU.

Advantages

Most common machine‑learning libraries are pre‑installed; additional packages can be installed via pip install or by uploading wheels.

Multiple notebooks can run concurrently, sharing the same quota and speeding up experiments.

Supports many data import methods, including direct links and Google Cloud Platform storage.

Disadvantages

Slow network speed; registration often requires a VPN and the captcha can be problematic.

Data upload can be sluggish.

After risk‑control tightening, the quota has been reduced and concurrent usage is limited.

Google Colab

Google Colab, part of Google Research, provides a collaborative notebook environment that integrates with Google Drive and GCP. It offers free GPU (often a V100) and optional TPU resources.

Official link: https://research.google.com/colaboratory/

Advantages

Upgrade to Colab Pro for $9.90 USD per month to obtain higher quotas.

Seamless access to Google Drive and other Google services.

GPU hardware is generally better than Kaggle’s, with V100 and TPU options.

Disadvantages

Requires a VPN for users outside regions where Google services are blocked.

Detailed usage instructions can be found at https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/302864983

Tianchi (Alibaba Cloud) and Baidu AI Studio

Both platforms are domestic Chinese cloud services that do not require a VPN and follow local usage habits. They typically provide V100 GPUs, which are more generous than the P100s offered by Google platforms.

Advantages

No need for VPN; straightforward login for Chinese users.

V100 GPUs are available, offering better performance than the free Google options.

Disadvantages

Tianchi’s storage quota is relatively low, while Baidu AI Studio offers slightly better limits.

Tianchi link: https://tianchi.aliyun.com/

Reference tutorial for Tianchi: https://blog.csdn.net/hanx09/article/details/107705720

Baidu AI Studio link: https://aistudio.baidu.com/aistudio/index

Reference tutorial for Baidu AI Studio: https://www.cnblogs.com/Kobaayyy/p/12592191.html