Where to rent GPUs. Three lanes: Australian-owned and operated (sovereign), Australian data region (foreign-owned but data stays here), and global marketplaces (cheapest, least sovereign). Filter by Location to keep it local. Prices in AUD (converted at AUD/USD 0.70, 2026-07-21); the Australian-owned clouds are enterprise-scale and priced by quote, so a solo creator's practical self-serve local path is a hyperscaler Australian region or a global marketplace filtered to Sydney. Rates drift, so re-verify before a big batch.
Not sure which box? Tell me two things and I'll
point at the best one and why, so you don't have to weigh all of them.
What are you making?
Comic panels, quick drafts (~10 GB)
Comic panels, best look (~24 GB)
Video, standard (~24 GB)
Video, long or premium (~48 GB+)
Voice / narration (light)
Big overnight batch
What matters most?
Cheapest
Fastest to start
Most local (Australia)
Recommend
Pick two, then press Recommend.
AU owned Sustainable Metal Cloud (Firmus) batch contact sales
H100 / A100 clusters GPU RAM 80 GB/GPU (H100/A100 cluster)
A$3.0 /hr
Sovereign and about half the carbon of air-cooled clouds; ranked by SemiAnalysis alongside the hyperscalers. Built for clusters, so contact sales; H100 around A$3/hr at commitment.
Offering: immersion-cooled bare metal · Billing: committedSpin-up: slow · Region: Sydney (also Singapore, India)
visit provider → AU owned Sharon AI immediate contact sales
H100 / H200 / B200 GPU RAM 80-192 GB/GPU (H100/H200/B200)
quote
Australia's largest sovereign AI cloud buildout, NVIDIA and Cisco partnered. Enterprise scale; talk to them for access and pricing.
Offering: sovereign neocloud · Billing: contractSpin-up: medium · Region: Sydney and Melbourne (NEXTDC)
visit provider → AU owned Micron21 (mCloud) immediate contact sales
A100 / H100 / H200 GPU RAM 40-141 GB (A100/H100/H200)
quote
100% Australian owned, Tier IV data centre, IRAP-assessed and ISO/PCI certified. GPU passthrough or time-sliced. Contact for a quote.
Offering: sovereign GPU cloud · Billing: quoteSpin-up: medium · Region: Melbourne (Tier IV)
visit provider → AU owned DUG Technology batch contact sales
HPC GPU nodes GPU RAM HPC nodes (varies)
quote
Perth-based, immersion-cooled (DUG Cool), scientific HPC heritage. Best when you have a big batch and want an Australian HPC partner.
Offering: HPC-as-a-service · Billing: quoteSpin-up: slow · Region: Perth
visit provider → AU data AWS (ap-southeast-2) immediate self-serve
H100 (p5) GPU RAM 80 GB (H100)
A$17.6 /hr
Data stays in Sydney, but AWS is US-owned. On-demand list is dear; spot and savings plans cut it a lot. Self-serve if you know AWS.
Offering: on-demand / spot · Billing: per-secondSpin-up: medium · Region: Sydney
visit provider → AU data Google Cloud (australia-southeast1) immediate self-serve
H100 GPU RAM 80 GB (H100)
A$17.8 /hr
Sydney region, US-owned. Similar list price to AWS; spot is much cheaper for restartable work.
Offering: on-demand / spot · Billing: per-secondSpin-up: medium · Region: Sydney
visit provider → AU data Azure (Australia East) immediate self-serve
ND H100 v4 GPU RAM 80 GB (H100)
A$20.0 /hr
Sydney region, US-owned; deepest government and finance adoption. Priciest list of the three, strong compliance story.
Offering: on-demand / spot · Billing: per-secondSpin-up: medium · Region: Sydney
visit provider → global Vast.ai batch self-serve
RTX 4090 GPU RAM 24 GB (RTX 4090)
A$0.45 /hr
Best $/VRAM-hour for restartable draft batches. You can filter to Australian hosts for a semi-local, cheap, self-serve option.
Offering: interruptible · Billing: per-secondSpin-up: medium · Region: marketplace (filter to Australian hosts)
visit provider → global RunPod batch self-serve
RTX 4090 GPU RAM 24 GB (RTX 4090)
A$0.5 /hr
Reliability step up from Vast, real network volumes so weights persist. Has a Sydney region; pick it for closer, self-serve compute.
Offering: community cloud · Billing: per-secondSpin-up: medium · Region: many (Sydney region exists)
visit provider → global RunPod immediate self-serve
A100 80GB GPU RAM 80 GB (A100)
A$2.0 /hr
All-round hero tier; network volumes for 40GB+ weights.
Offering: secure cloud · Billing: per-secondSpin-up: medium · Region: many (Sydney region exists)
visit provider → global RunPod immediate self-serve
H100 GPU RAM 80 GB (H100)
A$4.3 /hr
Top self-hosted tier for the heaviest video and control stacks.
Offering: secure cloud · Billing: per-secondSpin-up: medium · Region: many
visit provider → global Salad batch self-serve
RTX 5090 GPU RAM 32 GB (RTX 5090)
A$0.4 /hr
Cheapest anywhere, but no persistent volumes; needs external checkpointing. Nodes are strangers' PCs, so least sovereign of all.
Offering: batch priority · Billing: per-secondSpin-up: slow · Region: distributed consumer nodes
visit provider → global Modal immediate self-serve
H100 GPU RAM 80 GB (H100)
A$5.65 /hr
Excellent cold starts (container snapshots); free monthly credits. Best for bursty runs.
Offering: serverless · Billing: per-secondSpin-up: fast · Region: US/EU
visit provider → global Modal immediate self-serve
A100 80GB GPU RAM 80 GB (A100)
A$3.6 /hr
Scale-to-zero; great for the embeddings/TTS/image side jobs.
Offering: serverless · Billing: per-secondSpin-up: fast · Region: US/EU
visit provider → global fal.ai immediate self-serve
hosted (Wan/Kling/Veo) GPU RAM hosted (managed)
≈A$0.07 per second of video
Zero-ops hero shots where a hosted model beats self-hosting.
Offering: per-output API · Billing: per-outputSpin-up: fast · Region: US/EU
visit provider → global Lambda immediate self-serve
A100 80GB GPU RAM 80 GB (A100)
A$3.99 /hr
Simple VMs, no spot; steady rather than cheap.
Offering: on-demand · Billing: per-minuteSpin-up: medium · Region: US
visit provider →