Azure ND H100 v5 Price per Hour: Cloud GPU Pricing Explained

The Azure ND H100 v5 GPU virtual machine (VM) costs approximately $98.32 per hour for the full ND96isr H100 v5 VM equipped with 8 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs. Spot pricing is cheaper, around $70–$75 per hour, but comes with potential eviction risks. This pricing includes compute, memory, GPU, and storage bundled into a high-performance AI/ML and HPC cloud infrastructure solution. Cyfuture Cloud also offers competitive H100-based GPU hosting, which may provide cost-effective regional options with customizable service-level agreements and lower latency.

What is Azure ND H100 v5?

Azure ND H100 v5 series VMs are Microsoft's flagship GPU-accelerated virtual machines tailored for heavy AI, deep learning, and HPC workloads. They feature:

8 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs (80 GB each)

96 Intel Sapphire Rapids vCPUs

1,900 GB RAM

NVLink 4.0 and InfiniBand with 3.2 Tbps interconnect bandwidth

~28 TB local NVMe storage

This architecture supports complex tasks like distributed training of large language models (LLMs), high-fidelity simulations, and AI inference at scale, with extremely efficient GPU-to-GPU communication.

Azure ND H100 v5 Pricing Structure

Pricing for the ND96isr H100 v5 instance is roughly $98.32/hour on-demand for the full 8-GPU VM. This rate bundles the cost of compute, GPU acceleration, memory, and storage.

Pricing highlights:

Approx. $12.29 per GPU per hour

Spot prices offer a 20–30% discount, generally around $70 to $75/hour

Monthly billing at full on-demand rates for 12 hours/day usage can reach $35,000+

Pricing varies by Azure region and usage plan (reserved instances, spot instances, or on-demand).

Azure also offers pricing plans with savings for long-term reserved usage, which can significantly reduce the cost for enterprises planning prolonged workloads.

How Does Spot Pricing Work?

Spot VMs are surplus capacity offered at discounted pricing but may be interrupted. They are ideal for:

Experimental or prototype training

Checkpoint-based training workflows

Non-critical batch jobs where evictions can be tolerated

Spot instances can save 20-30% but require flexible job scheduling to handle potential interruptions. For mission-critical or production workloads, on-demand or reserved instances are recommended due to their stability and guaranteed availability.

Use Cases Ideal for ND H100 v5

Azure ND H100 v5 excels in:

Training Large Language Models (e.g., GPT, BERT) with large-scale model parallelism

High-performance simulations in finance, healthcare, and scientific research

AI-as-a-Service platforms requiring superior inference throughput

Distributed training leveraging NVLink and InfiniBand connectivity for fast communication between GPUs.

Comparing Azure ND H100 v5 with Other GPU VMs

Azure ND H100 v5 is premium-priced due to its cutting-edge NVIDIA H100 GPUs and advanced interconnect technologies. Compared to other VM sizes and older GPU generations like NVIDIA A100, ND H100 v5 delivers higher throughput and efficiency but at a higher hourly cost typically over $90/hour.

Smaller Azure H100 VM sizes with fewer GPUs and vCPUs exist at lower hourly rates (e.g., 40 vCPU/320 GB RAM VMs at ~$7/hour), catering to less intensive workloads. This pricing stratification allows scalable options based on workload demands.

How to Optimize Costs on Azure

To balance performance and budget:

Use Azure’s pricing calculator to forecast costs precisely

Leverage reserved instances for 1-3 year commitments with discounts up to 60%

Utilize spot instances for interruptible tasks

Employ autoscaling to shut down idle VMs during off hours

Schedule heavy GPU jobs during regional off-peak periods to reduce costs.

What Does Cyfuture Cloud Offer for H100 GPUs?

Cyfuture Cloud provides GPU hosting including NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs with strong availability in India and potentially better latency and pricing than global hyperscalers. Their offerings include:

Flexible and customized SLAs

Competitive pricing models tailored to enterprise AI and HPC workloads

Regional GPU access to reduce latency and comply with data regulations

Cyfuture Cloud is an alternative for organizations seeking cloud GPU solutions optimized for their regional needs or hybrid deployments.

Conclusion

Azure ND H100 v5 series offers some of the most powerful cloud GPU capabilities for advanced AI and HPC workloads, priced around $98.32 per hour on-demand. Spot instances reduce costs but add potential risk. Enterprises can manage costs via reserved plans and autoscaling. Cyfuture Cloud provides a valuable alternative with competitive NVIDIA H100 GPU hosting, particularly suited for India and hybrid cloud users. Understanding pricing and optimizing instance selection is vital to get the best ROI on these cutting-edge cloud GPUs.