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GPU Splitting

GPU splitting lets a single node serve multiple customers at once — each renting an integer subset of GPUs. It increases utilization and lets you price flexibly.

Host prerequisite: Docker storage​

GPU splitting requires Docker on overlay2 + XFS with pquota and ftype=1. Run the CLI workflow in Docker Storage Setup before enabling the feature in the portal — the Edit button only unlocks once preflight passes. (This same storage layout will be required for every node in the near future, so the work is not GPU-splitting specific.)

Enable GPU splitting in the portal​

After the host meets the prerequisites:

  1. Open the node's details page in the Provider Portal.
  2. Find the GPU Splitting panel — an Edit button appears once preflight passes.
  3. Set the minimum GPU count per rental — at least 1, and no more than the node's total GPU count. On flagship nodes it must be below the total to count for the idle payout (see below).

Customers can then rent any integer count between your minimum and the node's total. To disable splitting, clear the minimum — only allowed when no pod is currently using a partial allocation.

When splitting actually helps​

More renters can match your node. A meaningful share of customers want a single GPU rather than a full 8× node, and an 8-GPU node without splitting is invisible to that segment. Widening the pool of renters that can match your node usually raises utilization on multi-GPU hosts.

On flagship nodes it protects the idle payout. An 8× H200, B200, or B300 node must offer GPU splitting, GPU Profiling (ncu), or run inside an attested confidential VM to earn the unrented incentive while idle. Splitting counts only when the minimum GPU count per rental is set below the node's total — a minimum equal to the full node size is a whole-host rental in practice and does not qualify.

Your minimum split count also gives the validator a second GPU-count tier for your idle node. The unrented incentive is paid per (GPU model, GPU count) tier, and each tier has its own rate and its own capacity cap. Your minimum names a second tier the validator can rate the node against while it is idle:

  • If your GPU count has no priced tier, splitting is what makes the node eligible at all. Only some GPU counts are priced — today 1 and 8. A 4-GPU node earns 0 from the idle pool; the same node with a minimum split count of 1 is rated in the 1-GPU tier and earns.
  • If your GPU-count tier is over its capacity cap, the node can be rated against your minimum-split tier instead — but only when the node's whole GPU count fits in that tier's free capacity. Being moved means no cap dilution for that cycle.

Both incentive effects apply while the node has free GPUs. A partial rental does not switch them off: the rented GPUs earn rental fees plus the rented pool, and the GPUs still free are scored as an ordinary idle candidate, rated at your minimum-split tier. The free GPUs must still pass the usual idle rules to earn — your own Default Job on the node, a spot tier, too little disk, or a price above the limit sets that part to 0, exactly as on a fully idle node. Splitting never changes your rental price or your rental fees, and on single-GPU nodes it has no effect.

For the exact tier rules, an example, and the log line the validator writes when it moves a node, see Subnet emission → When your GPU-count tier is full.