Google Cloud Platform is a cloud computing service by Google that offers hosting on the same supporting infrastructure that Google uses internally for end-user products like Google Search and YouTube.[1] Cloud Platform provides developer products to build a range of programs from simple websites to complex applications.[2][3]
Google Cloud Platform is a part of a suite of enterprise services from Google Cloud and provides a set of modular cloud-based services with a host of development tools. For example, hosting and computing, cloud storage, data storage, translations APIs and prediction APIs.[2]
—–Wiki
Just like Amazon and Microsoft, Google started its own cloud computing platform and the first 12 months for new users are free but with limited credits. You probably get used to running your machine learning algorithms on your local machine, but I believe you know the clouding computing is the future! It is much cheaper and convenient to use.
When I am reviewing the CS231n: Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition 2017, I find they extended the new lab notes for the assignment as follows.
The students now can work on the assignment in one of two ways: locally on their own machine, or on a virtual machine on Google Cloud.
That is so cool, right! If you are new to machine learning or just want to try different tools. This assignment is definitely a good practice. Do it by yourself and you will make progress!
Cheers!
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