Azure ND H100 v5 Pricing per Hour-Complete Cost Breakdown

The Azure ND H100 v5 virtual machine, equipped with 8 NVIDIA H100 GPUs, currently has an on-demand price of approximately $98.32 per hour in U.S. East and Central regions. Spot pricing offers discounted rates around $70-$75 per hour but comes with the risk of eviction. Pricing can vary by region, reserved instance plans, and additional services such as storage and networking. Cyfuture Cloud also provides competitive NVIDIA H100 GPU cloud hosting with flexible pricing and regional advantages, offering a cost-effective alternative for high-performance AI and HPC workloads.

Overview of Azure ND H100 v5 VM

The Azure ND H100 v5 series represents Microsoft's flagship GPU-accelerated virtual machines tailored for intensive artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) training, and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. These VMs are powered by NVIDIA’s latest H100 Tensor Core GPUs, each with 80 GB of high-bandwidth memory, optimized for large-scale deep learning tasks and scientific simulations.

Specifications include:

8× NVIDIA H100 GPUs (80 GB each)

96 vCPUs based on Intel Sapphire Rapids architecture

1,900 GB RAM

Ultra-low-latency NVLink and InfiniBand interconnects

Approximately 28 TB local NVMe SSD storage

This setup facilitates seamless multi-GPU communication and massive parallelism for large language model (LLM) training and distributed AI workloads.

Detailed Pricing Breakdown

On-Demand Pricing

The standard hourly rate for the ND96isr H100 v5 VM is about $98.32 per hour in Azure’s U.S. East and Central regions.

This rate includes the entire VM stack—compute, memory, GPUs, and local storage bundled together.

Pricing per GPU translates roughly to $12.29 per GPU per hour based on the 8-GPU configuration.

Spot Pricing

Azure offers spot instances with discounts ranging from 20% to 30%, lowering costs to around $70-$75 per hour.

Spot instances are ideal for fault-tolerant or experimental workloads but carry the risk of unexpected termination (eviction) when capacity is reclaimed.

Reserved Instances and Savings Plans

Committing to 1-year or 3-year reserved instances can reduce costs significantly—Azure states discounts can reach up to 60% for reserved capacity.

For organizations running continuous training or inference, reserved plans improve cost predictability and savings.

Additional Cost Components

Network egress, storage beyond the NVMe allocation, and premium support can add to the overall cost.

Data transfer charges depend on region and workload patterns.

Factors Influencing Cost

Several elements impact the final hourly cost for deploying Azure ND H100 v5 instances:

Region: Pricing varies according to the data center location due to operational costs and resource availability.

Instance Configuration: Custom VM options (memory, CPU, GPUs) influence the hourly rate.

Usage Patterns: Spot pricing benefits, reserved instances, and autoscaling affect cost efficiency.

Additional Services: Managed storage, networking features, and SLA levels add to expenses.

Careful planning around these factors is essential to balance cost against performance for AI and HPC workloads.

Comparison with Other GPU Instances

Azure’s ND H100 v5 instances stand out for HPC-grade interconnects and GPU density, but Cyfuture Cloud offers a promising alternative with a focus on local latency, tailored SLAs, and potentially lower total cost of ownership, especially attractive for regional deployments such as in India.

Use Cases for Azure ND H100 v5

Large Language Model Training: Scalable multi-GPU setups for models like GPT and BERT.

Distributed Deep Learning: Leveraging NVLink and InfiniBand for seamless GPU communications.

Scientific Simulations: Physical modeling, financial analytics, medical imaging requiring high compute density.

AI-as-a-Service: Enterprises deploying AI inference platforms at scale with minimal latency.

These use cases justify the premium pricing by delivering unmatched computational speed and efficiency essential for today's AI workloads.

Cost Optimization Tips

Utilize spot instances during experimental or flexible jobs to save up to 30%.

Purchase reserved instances for steady-state workloads to gain up to 60% discounts.

Leverage Azure autoscale features to shut down idle VMs automatically.

Monitor and optimize storage and data egress charges.

Consider hybrid or regional cloud providers like Cyfuture Cloud for tailored support and competitive pricing.

Why Choose Cyfuture Cloud for NVIDIA H100 GPU Hosting

High-Performance GPU Cloud Hosting
Experience NVIDIA H100-based GPU servers optimized for AI, ML, and HPC workloads with low latency and regional availability.

Flexible Pricing Models
Benefit from cost-efficient, transparent pricing tailored to your workload needs with options to avoid long-term lock-ins.

Local Support and Service Level Agreements
Advanced SLAs and personalized support ensure uptime and performance, especially critical for enterprise-grade deployments.

Conclusion

The Azure ND H100 v5 virtual machine is among the highest-performing GPU instances available, with pricing reflecting its cutting-edge hardware and bundled resources. At around $98.32 per hour on-demand, it is a premium solution ideal for large-scale AI and HPC workloads. Spot pricing and reserved instances offer cost mitigation strategies to optimize spend. For organizations seeking regional GPU cloud hosting with competitive pricing and customizable SLAs, Cyfuture Cloud presents a compelling alternative. Careful planning and smart usage strategies can help maximize ROI on these advanced computing resources.