If you want to rent GPU Japan-side capacity, for Japanese users, a Japanese-language model or a team in Tokyo, the first thing to know is that Cloudj does not sell a "Japan region". Cloudj GPUs come from a live list of independent host machines, and you find Japanese ones by setting the Country field to JP. This article shows how to run that search, what to do when the list is short or empty, and how to keep your product stable while GPU stock moves around.
Why people look for a GPU in Japan
There are three typical reasons, and each one changes how strict you should be about the country:
- Your users are in Japan. A chat assistant, image tool or voice app answers every request from the GPU. The closer the GPU is to users on Japanese networks, the shorter each round trip.
- Your model is tuned for Japanese. Serving a Japanese-language LLM or speech model does not require a Japanese host, but teams often want the full stack in the same place as their users. Japanese LLM inference on a GPU in Japan covers model choice and serving.
- Your team works from Japan. Interactive work such as notebooks or ComfyUI over an SSH tunnel feels better when the host is nearby, though it is not essential.
If none of these apply, for example you are training a LoRA overnight, Japan is optional and you may be better off searching broadly by price.
Step by step: search for machines in JP
- Open the GPU deploy page in the console.
- Pick the model tile you want, for example RTX 4090, and the GPU count (1×, 2×, 4× or 8×; all GPUs sit in the same machine).
- Type
JPin the Country field. - Look at the result list. If a machine is listed, check its reliability percentage, max duration in days, download speed and bandwidth price before you deploy.
- Choose a template (Ubuntu 22.04 + CUDA over SSH, or PyTorch + JupyterLab), pick your disk size carefully because it cannot be resized later, select an SSH key and deploy.
The console sorts results by total price and shows the exact price before you confirm. Live "from" prices per model are on GPU cloud. For a deeper look at a single model, renting an RTX 4090 in Japan goes through that card specifically, and the RTX 4090 page shows its specs and current "from" price.
When few or no machines are listed in JP
Stock changes during the day, so a short or empty JP list is normal, not a fault. Work down this ladder:
| Step | What to change | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Try again later in the day | Costs time, keeps the country |
| 2 | Add KR and TW: type JP, KR, TW | Hosts still in East Asia |
| 3 | Add HK | Usually still reasonable for users in Japan; measure it |
| 4 | Turn off "Datacenter only" if it was on | More consumer-class hosts appear |
| 5 | Lower minimum reliability slightly | More choice, more need for backups |
| 6 | Pick a different model with similar VRAM | For example RTX 3090 or RTX 5090 instead of RTX 4090 |
| 7 | Accept a farther host for non-interactive work | Fine for batch, worse for live users |
At each step, measure from where your users are. A host in another country can perform close to a Japanese host or noticeably worse, depending on routing. The GPU cloud Asia guide explains how the Asian country codes fit together.
Japanese-language workloads: what actually matters
For a Japanese chatbot or retrieval system, VRAM and the model matter more than the country:
- A 7B to 14B model quantized to 4 bits fits comfortably in a 24 GB card such as RTX 4090 or RTX 3090, with room for context.
- Larger models need a 32 GB RTX 5090, a 48 GB card or several GPUs in one machine.
- Tokenizers handle Japanese text differently; test throughput with your own prompts rather than trusting English benchmarks.
You install the serving stack yourself over SSH. vLLM, Ollama or llama.cpp are not preinstalled templates on Cloudj; the base Ubuntu + CUDA template gives you a clean machine with nvidia-smi working.
ssh -p PORT root@HOST
nvidia-smi
pip install vllmUse the host and port from the instance's Connection tab; the port is not always 22.
Keep a Tokyo VPS as the stable front end
A GPU machine is an independent host with no hardware SLA and an end date shown as "available until". If the host goes offline, the instance is not moved automatically. For a product used in Japan, that means the public parts should not live on the GPU.
A common layout:
- A Cloudj VPS in Tokyo holds the domain, TLS certificate, API gateway, rate limiting and a small database or queue.
- The GPU instance, in
JPwhen listed or a neighbouring country when not, runs only the model. - The VPS talks to the GPU over SSH tunnels or an authenticated internal endpoint.
When you need to move the GPU, you deploy a new one, copy the model, and point the VPS at it. Users keep the same address. Choosing a VPS in Japan covers the VPS side in detail.
Backups and the end date
Before you put real traffic on a Japanese host, note its max duration. When the date arrives, the instance and disk are removed. Keep model weights and configuration somewhere you control and script the setup, so a redeploy in JP or KR takes minutes rather than an afternoon.
FAQ
Does Cloudj have a data centre in Japan for GPUs?
No. GPUs come from independent hosts. You search with the country code JP and deploy a machine if one is listed.
Can I choose Tokyo or Osaka for a GPU?
No. GPU machines show the country only. City choice exists for Cloudj VPS, where Tokyo is available.
What if nothing is listed in JP today?
Add KR, TW and HK, loosen filters, try a model with similar VRAM, or check again later. Stock changes during the day.
Is a GPU in Japan needed for a Japanese-language model?
Not for the model itself. It matters only when users in Japan wait on each response.
Next step
Open the GPU deploy page, set the Country field to JP and see what is listed now. If you plan a Japanese product, put a Tokyo VPS in front so the GPU behind it can change without your users noticing.