# MNIST

![](https://2327526407-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2F-LvBP1svpACTB1R1x_U4%2F-LvfmZN0SXrvBs3ndsqG%2F-Lvg7Fj0FIdVfziJHILk%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=4d01624c-8ec3-4498-8f39-6105256307e1)

Short for “Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology," MNIST is the canonical database of labeled images of handwritten digits from 0 through 9.  MNIST is often used in sample projects as a sort of "hello world" for machine learning.  It is also used frequently as a performance benchmark.  

The dataset has a training set of 60,000 examples, and a test set of 10,000 examples which are available from this [page](http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/).

## MNIST + Gradient

MNIST is available in the [Public Datasets Repository](https://docs.paperspace.com/gradient/data/public-datasets-repository) which is provided for free in Gradient.  These datasets are automatically mounted to every Notebook and Experiment.