NVIDIA-Certified Professional

NVIDIA AI Infrastructure Certification Exam

(NCP-AII)

What is the NVIDIA AI Infrastructure Certification (NCP-AII)?

The NCP-AI Infrastructure certification is an intermediate-level credential that validates a candidate’s ability to deploy, configure, and validate advanced NVIDIA AI infrastructure.

Please carefully review our certification FAQs and exam policies before scheduling your exam.

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Exam Details for NCP-AII

Duration: 2 hours

Price: $400 

Certification Level: Professional   

Subject: AI Infrastructure    

Number of questions: 70-75

Scoring: Pass/Fail 

Language: English

Validity: This certification is valid for two years from issuance. Recertification may be achieved by retaking the exam.

Credentials: Upon passing the exam, participants will receive a digital badge and optional certificate indicating the certification level and topic.

Who is AI Infrastructure Certification for?

This certification is for professionals who deploy, configure, validate, and maintain advanced AI infrastructure in complex, GPU-powered environments. It is ideal for those responsible for managing, troubleshooting, and optimizing AI systems throughout their lifecycle.

What are the Key Responsibilities of AI Infrastructure Professionals?

  • Infrastructure Deployment:
    Install, configure, and validate AI servers, networking, storage, and supporting hardware.
  • Platform and Cluster Management: Maintain operating systems, drivers, containers, cluster software, computing resources, user access, and workloads.
  • Testing and Performance Validation: Conduct system checks, stress tests, and benchmarks to ensure reliability and performance.
  • Troubleshooting and Optimization: Diagnose hardware and software issues, replace faulty components, and optimize system efficiency
  • Monitoring, Security, and Scalability: Monitor system health and resource usage while ensuring secure, efficient, and scalable operations.

What are the Recommended Qualifications for AI Infrastructure Professionals Who Want to Take This Exam?

  • Experience: 2–3 years of hands-on experience deploying, configuring, and validating GPU-based servers and AI clusters. 
  • Infrastructure Fundamentals: Understanding of data center networking, storage, power, cooling, cabling, and system bring-up.
  • AI Infrastructure Technologies:  Familiarity with NVIDIA GPUs, BlueField DPUs, firmware, drivers, operating systems, and cluster management tools.
  • Cluster Operations: Experience monitoring cluster health, managing user access and workloads, and maintaining reliable AI infrastructure operations.
  • Testing & Troubleshooting: Ability to validate cluster health and performance, check connectivity, and resolve hardware and software issues.

Certification Learning Path

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AI Infrastructure & Operations Fundamentals

A self-paced course that covers essential components of AI infrastructure, including compute platforms, networking, and storage solutions. The course also addresses AI operations, focusing on infrastructure management and cluster orchestration.

AI Infrastructure Professional Workshop

A multi-day workshop that covers the essential aspects of AI infrastructure in modern data centers, focusing on NVIDIA's cutting-edge technologies. The course provides a deep dive into optimizing AI workloads, managing GPU resources, and leveraging NVIDIA's ecosystem to build and maintain efficient AI-driven data centers.

NCP-AII Exam Preparation Topics and Recommended Reading

The information below is intended to help you prepare for this exam.
Topics covered, weight per topic, recommended training, and additional readings are provided. 

System and Server Bring-Up

Test takers will be assessed on their understanding of end-to-end hardware deployment: rack, power, BMC, security, firmware, physical installation, initial server and network setup, cable validation, and hardware verification for AI workloads. This includes ensuring all components are correctly deployed, configured, and operational before scaling AI operations 

System and Server Bring-Up Potential Exam Topics:

  • Describe the sequence of events for deployment and validation
  • Describe network topologies for AI Factories
  • Perform initial configuration of BMC, OOB, and TPM
  • Perform firmware upgrades (including on NVIDIA HGX™ systems) and fault detection
  • Validate power and cooling parameter
  • Install GPU-based servers (SMI)
  • Validate installed hardware
  • Describe and validate cable types and transceivers
  • Install physical GPUs
  • Validate hardware operation for workloads
  • Configure initial parameters for third party storage

31%
Exam Weight

Physical Layer Management

This exam topic focuses on configuring and maintaining physical resources, including GPU/BlueField DPU networks, cable and transceiver management, and GPU partitioning with MIG. Ensures all physical components support secure, scalable, high performance AI data center operations. 

Physical Layer Management Potential Exam Topics:

  • Configure and manage a BlueField Network Platform.
  • Configure MIG (AI and HPC)

5%
Exam Weight

Control Plane Installation and Configuration

These topics cover installation and configuration of operating systems, cluster managers, drivers, container tools, and management software. Enables orchestrated deployment, resource grouping, secure access, and reliable system software integration for NVIDIA AI clusters.

Control Plane Installation and Configuration Potential Exam Topics:

  • Install BCM, configure, and verify HA
  • Install OS
  • Install Cluster (configure category, configure interfaces, install Slurm/Enroot/Pyxis)
  • Install/update/remove NVIDIA GPU and DOCA drivers
  • Install the NVIDIA container toolkit
  • Demonstrate how to use NVIDIA GPUs with Docker
  • Install NGC CLI on hosts

19%
Exam Weight

Recommended Training (Optional)

Suggested Reading

Cluster Test and Verification

The section of the exam focuses on validating cluster health and readiness through stress testing, benchmarking, cable integrity checks, firmware validation, and bandwidth verification. Includes end-to-end diagnostics and burn-in to ensure high reliability and optimal AI workload performance.

Cluster Test and Verification Potential Exam Topics:

  • Perform single-nod stress test
  • Execute HPL (High-Performance Linpack)
  • Perform single-node NCCL (including verify NVIDIA NVLink™ Switch)
  • Validate cables by verifying signal quality
  • Confirm cabling is correct
  • Confirm FW/SW on switches
  • Confirm FW/SW on BlueField 3
  • Confirm FW on transceivers
  • Run ClusterKit to perform a multifaceted node assessment
  • Run NCCL to verify E/W fabric bandwidth
  • Perform NCCL burn-in
  • Perform HPL burn-in
  • Perform Nemo burn-in
  • Test storage

33%
Exam Weight

Recommended Training (Optional)

Suggested Reading

Troubleshooting and Optimization

This section of the exam focuses on detecting, analyzing, and resolving hardware faults and performance bottlenecks. It encompasses root-cause analysis, component replacement, server/storage tuning, and ongoing optimization for multivendor hardware in NVIDIA-powered AI factories.

Troubleshooting and Optimization Potential Exam Topics:

  • Identify and troubleshoot hardware faults (e.g., GPU/fan/network card)
  • Identify faulty cards/GPUs/power supplies
  • Replace faulty cards/GPUs/power supplies
  • Execute performance optimization for AMD and Intel Servers
  • Storage Optimization

12%
Exam Weight

Recommended Training (Optional)

Suggested Reading

Practice Questions

Explore sample questions to get familiar with the topics and question styles you may encounter on the certification exam.

Learning Mode

Answer each question and get immediate feedback, including the correct answer, an explanation, and a link to learn more.

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