How do I use Google Colab for cloud computation?

Google Colab is a free cloud service that offers Jupyter Notebooks via remote servers. Students can use GPU and TPU resources from Google to run their Python code using Google Colab. For a quick introduction, Google’s Colab intro notebook is great.

Uploading data

Data needed for a project can be uploaded to Google Drive and accessed within the code after Google Drive is mounted in the notebook. This tutorial shows one way to do that.

Other resources for how to access your data in the Google Colab environment, and an overview of some of the features:

• Mounting your drive and cloud service
• Notebook to learn some of the features of Colab

Code snippets

You can use code snippets for accessing your files:

Using R in Colab

Officially, Google Colab supports Python. However, there is an R kernel installed. You can get started with R in Google Colab (Stack Overflow).

Alternative: Kaggle notebooks

Kaggle Notebooks is similar to Google Colab. Kaggle hosts Jupyter Notebook kernels on computing resources that include more robust GPUs to run R or Python scripts.

What are the differences between Kaggle Notebooks and Google Colab?

More resources

A Simple Tutorial for the Frustrated and Confused may also be helpful to get started with Google Colab.

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