Definition
Plain language
A high-end NVIDIA data-center chip used to train and run large AI models, a generation before the H100.
As stated in the literature
NVIDIA's Ampere-architecture data-center GPU, widely used for large-scale training and serving prior to the Hopper-generation H100; eight of them form a common single-node training cluster.
Why it matters: It represents the kind of expensive, specialized hardware that determines whether a team can afford to train big AI models at all.
For example, a research lab might wire together eight A100 chips in a single machine to train a large language model.
Heard on the show
“Reproducing all three applications takes about forty-six GPU-hours on a single A100.”Episode 173 — The Free Step-Level Grader Hiding in Every RL Training Run