Can't access GPUs on a Compute Engine with a personal account.

[CyberSamurai]

I have two Google Cloud accounts, a business/organisation account, and a personal account. The business account is absolutely fine, but I'm having issues with my fully-activated personal account.

With a little effort, using my company account I can successfully instantiate a VM with a T4 GPU. But, I cannot do the same with my personal account. I've been trying for hours, and instantiating a GPU VM in the Console web browser platform always fails. The Google rep for my company said personal accounts go through an Account Manager check when GPUs are requested to prevent potential abuse. That's when our conversation stopped because it wasn't concerning the business.

Can a personal account ever access GPUs? And if so, how do I convince Google Cloud that my intentions are good? I am an avid computational chemist, and I self-publish home-brew studies when I can. The GPUs will be used to run protein simulations.

[lawrencenelson]

Hi @CyberSamurai,

Welcome to the Google Cloud Community!

By "fully-activated personal account", do you mean your personal account has billing enabled? 

Just FYI, if your account is on free trial, you won't be able to add/use GPUs with your VM. You may view the full coverage here - 90-day, $300 Free Trial offer.

At any point during your Free Trial, you have the option to upgrade your Cloud Billing account. This upgrade ensures that your resources continue to operate without interruption once the trial period concludes. Additionally, upgrading your account may be necessary if you're interested in accessing features not covered by the Free Trial, like GPUs and Windows servers [1].

I hope this helps. Thank you.

[1]. https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features#how-to-upgrade