Colab and Python Lightning#

We will use Google Colab and PyTorch Lightning.

1. Google Colab#

Google Colab is a free cloud-based platform that lets you write and execute Python code in a Jupyter Notebook environment. It’s perfect for collaborative coding, and you get access to free GPUs and TPUs for training models.

Key Features#

  • Free GPUs/TPUs: Speed up computation-heavy tasks.

  • Collaboration: Share notebooks with team members in real-time.

  • Pre-installed Libraries: Comes with many popular Python libraries.

  • Integration: Easily integrates with Google Drive for saving and accessing files.


2. Python Lightning#

PyTorch Lightning (or Python Lightning) is a high-level framework for PyTorch that simplifies building and scaling machine learning models. It abstracts the boilerplate code and provides a structure for reproducible and scalable experiments.

Key Features#

  • Modularity: Separate data loading, model definition, and training loops.

  • Scalability: Run on CPUs, GPUs, TPUs, or clusters with minimal changes.

  • Logging and Callbacks: Built-in support for logging with TensorBoard and other tools.

  • Community Plugins: Leverage Lightning’s rich plugin ecosystem for distributed training, pruning, and more.

How to Get Started#

  1. Install Lightning:

    pip install lightning
    

Useful Links#