Clarification on GPU VM Eligibility for Sponsorship Subscription
My previous request for NCasT4v3 was denied because my subscription is a Sponsorship subscription.
Could you please tell me which GPU VM families, if any, are eligible for quota approval under my specific subscription?
I do not need a specific GPU model. I only need access to a GPU-enabled VM capable of running inference for a fine-tuned Llama 3.1 8B model.
If no GPU VM families are eligible for this subscription, please confirm that so I can evaluate alternative deployment options.
2 answers
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Himanshu Shekhar 6,710 Reputation points • Microsoft External Staff • Moderator
Hey Meghana — I see why you’re asking. However, the documentation you provided doesn’t include any matrix that maps Azure Sponsorship subscription types (including “Sponsorship” / “Azure Pass sponsorship” / other sponsored offers) to specific eligible GPU VM families for quota approval.
What we can confirm from the provided docs is general eligibility/entitlement behavior for sponsorships and quotas are controlled through entitlement/approval, but the docs don’t state which VM families (NC/ND/NV, etc.) are eligible under a sponsorship subscription.
- Microsoft Azure Sponsorship is email invitation only and selected customers get an offer/activation flow. (So the approval/eligibility for compute—including quota requests—depends on the specific entitlement your account received.)
- For Azure Pass Sponsorship, the docs focus on redemption/activation and do not provide any GPU-VM-family quota eligibility list.
- For Azure Sponsorship/EA Sponsorship, the docs mention general quota/resource availability constraints, but again no specific GPU VM families eligible for approval are listed.
Because there’s no GPU-family eligibility list in the provided material, we can’t accurately tell you “which GPU VM families are eligible for quota approval” under your sponsorship type based solely on this documentation.
The most reliable way is to check against the service quota/limits behavior in your subscription and/or request the quota for the specific GPU family you care about (since your earlier NCasT4v3 request was denied, it likely indicates your sponsorship entitlement doesn’t support that GPU family—but the docs don’t let us generalize to other GPU families).
Reference list (from the provided documentation)
- Microsoft Azure Sponsorship / redeem & activate (Azure Pass + Sponsorship activation overview):
- “sponsorship request” (portal entitlement details; includes activation/balance/redemption info):
- “ST - Entitlement check - Legacy CustomerLed(MultipleSponsorships/AcademicSponsorhip/AzurePass)”:
- “ST- Help me validate or confirm my discount- Legacy CustomerLed Sponsorship”:
- “ST - Sponsorship request - Legacy All”:
- “ST - EA Sponsorship -EA Sponsorship question”:
- Azure GPU-optimized VM sizes for AVD (general list; not sponsorship-specific):
- NCasT4_v3 (VM family sizing info; not sponsorship/entitlement-specific):
- NC and NV series overview (general VM families; not sponsorship/entitlement-specific):
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jaswanth_srighakollapu 0 Reputation points
Hey, GPU quota availability depends on the type of Azure subscription and the restrictions associated with it. Unfortunately, support forums and moderators do not have visibility into the specific quota policies applied to an individual Sponsorship subscription.
Though Azure don't provide gpu's vm env for the free trails .... there are specific CPU that can use check this link for more to find out...if any helps.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/quotashttps://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/offers/ms-azr-0036p/
https://portal.azure.com/#view/Microsoft_Azure_Capacity/QuotaMenuBlade
If your request for the NCasT4v3 family was denied because of the subscription type, it may indicate that GPU-enabled VM families are restricted for your sponsorship offer. However, we cannot confirm whether all GPU VM families are blocked or whether certain families remain eligible without checking the subscription's quota and offer details.
To get a definitive answer, please open a support request under Quota or Subscription Management and ask Microsoft to confirm which GPU VM families (if any) are eligible for quota approval on your Sponsorship subscription....
If no GPU families are supported under the sponsorship offer, Microsoft support can confirm that directly, allowing you to evaluate alternatives such as:
- Upgrading to a Pay-As-You-Go subscription
- Using managed AI services instead of self-hosted GPU VMs
- Deploying your model through Azure AI offerings that may not require dedicated GPU VM quota
Hope this helps 😊