Create a Cloud TPU VM instance using Compute Engine

This document shows you how to create a single TPU VM with the Compute Engine gcloud compute instances create command. You can also create a TPU VM instance by specifying an instance template. For more information, see Create a VM from an instance template.

Prerequisites

Complete the following prerequisites:

  1. Create a Google Cloud project for your TPUs as described in Set up a Google Cloud project for TPUs.

  2. Determine your TPU requirements as described in Plan your Cloud TPU resources.

Create a TPU VM instance

The parameters you use to create a TPU VM instance depend on the consumption option you are using: on-demand, Spot, reservation-bound, or flex-start. For more information, see Plan your TPU resources .

Create an on-demand TPU VM instance

To create an on-demand TPU VM instance, use the gcloud compute instances create command:

  gcloud compute instances create TPU_NAME \
    --machine-type=MACHINE_TYPE \
    --image-family=IMAGE_FAMILY \
    --image-project=IMAGE_PROJECT \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --maintenance-policy=TERMINATE

Replace the following placeholders:

  • TPU_NAME: A name for your TPU VM.
  • MACHINE_TYPE: The machine type for the TPU VM (for example ct6e-standard-8t).
  • IMAGE_FAMILY: The OS image family for the TPU VM. If you want to install a specific OS version, use the --image flag. For more information about OS images, see OS images.
  • IMAGE_PROJECT: The project that contains the OS image. For TPU images, this is ubuntu-os-accelerator-images.
  • ZONE: The zone for the TPU VM (for example us-central1-b).

Create a TPU Spot VM instance

To create a TPU Spot VM instance, use the gcloud compute instances create command with the --provisioning-model=SPOT flag:

  gcloud compute instances create TPU_NAME \
    --machine-type=MACHINE_TYPE \
    --image-family=IMAGE_FAMILY \
    --image-project=IMAGE_PROJECT \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --provisioning-model=SPOT \
    --instance-termination-action=DELETE \
    --maintenance-policy=TERMINATE

Replace the following placeholders:

  • TPU_NAME: A name for your TPU VM.
  • MACHINE_TYPE: The machine type for the TPU VM (for example ct6e-standard-8t).
  • IMAGE_FAMILY: The OS image family for the TPU VM. If you want to install a specific OS version, use the --image flag. For more information about OS images, see OS images.
  • IMAGE_PROJECT: The project that contains the OS image. For TPU images, this is ubuntu-os-accelerator-images.
  • ZONE: The zone for the TPU VM (for example us-central1-b).

Create a TPU VM instance using a reservation

To create a TPU VM instance using the reservation-bound consumption option, use the gcloud compute instances create command with the --reservation-affinity=specific and --reservation flags:

  gcloud compute instances create TPU_NAME \
    --machine-type=MACHINE_TYPE \
    --image-family=IMAGE_FAMILY \
    --image-project=IMAGE_PROJECT \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --provisioning-model=reservation-bound \
    --reservation-affinity=specific \
    --reservation=RESERVATION_NAME \
    --instance-termination-action=DELETE \
    --maintenance-policy=TERMINATE

Replace the following placeholders:

  • TPU_NAME: A name for your TPU VM.
  • MACHINE_TYPE: The machine type for the TPU VM (for example ct6e-standard-8t).
  • IMAGE_FAMILY: The OS image family for the TPU VM. If you want to install a specific OS version, use the --image flag. For more information about OS images, see OS images.
  • IMAGE_PROJECT: The project that contains the OS image. For TPU images, this is ubuntu-os-accelerator-images.
  • ZONE: The zone for the TPU VM (for example us-central1-b).
  • RESERVATION_NAME: The name of your reservation.

Create a TPU Flex-start VM

To create a TPU Flex-start VM instance, use the gcloud compute instances create command with the --provisioning-model=FLEX_START flag:

  gcloud compute instances create TPU_NAME \
    --machine-type=MACHINE_TYPE \
    --image-family=IMAGE_FAMILY \
    --image-project=IMAGE_PROJECT \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --provisioning-model=FLEX_START \
    --max-run-duration=MAX_RUN_DURATION \
    --request-valid-for-duration=VALID_DURATION \
    --instance-termination-action=DELETE \
    --maintenance-policy=TERMINATE

Replace the following placeholders:

  • TPU_NAME: A name for your TPU VM.
  • MACHINE_TYPE: The machine type for the TPU VM (for example ct6e-standard-8t).
  • IMAGE_FAMILY: The OS image family for the TPU VM. If you want to install a specific OS version, use the --image flag. For more information about OS images, see OS images.
  • IMAGE_PROJECT: The project that contains the OS image. For TPU images, this is ubuntu-os-accelerator-images.
  • ZONE: The zone for the TPU VM (for example us-central1-b).
  • MAX_RUN_DURATION: The maximum run duration for the TPU VM (for example 6h).
  • VALID_DURATION: The maximum duration for which the request is valid.

For more information about creating Compute Engine instances, see Create and start a Compute Engine instance.

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