diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/PCA.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/PCA.scala
index 9cf722e12169..82a344b7677b 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/PCA.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/PCA.scala
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ private[feature] trait PCAParams extends Params with HasInputCol with HasOutputC
 
   /**
    * The number of principal components.
+   *
    * @group param
    */
   final val k: IntParam = new IntParam(this, "k", "the number of principal components")
@@ -44,6 +45,16 @@ private[feature] trait PCAParams extends Params with HasInputCol with HasOutputC
   /** @group getParam */
   def getK: Int = $(k)
 
+  /**
+    * Minimal variance retained by principal components.
+    *
+    * @group param
+    */
+  final val requiredVariance: DoubleParam = new DoubleParam(this, "requiredVariance",
+    "minimal variance retained by principal components")
+
+  /** @group getParam */
+  def getRequiredVariance: Double = $(requiredVariance)
 }
 
 /**
@@ -63,7 +74,16 @@ class PCA (override val uid: String) extends Estimator[PCAModel] with PCAParams
   def setOutputCol(value: String): this.type = set(outputCol, value)
 
   /** @group setParam */
-  def setK(value: Int): this.type = set(k, value)
+  def setK(value: Int): this.type = {
+    if (isSet(requiredVariance)) clear(requiredVariance)
+    set(k, value)
+  }
+
+  /** @group setParam */
+  def setRequiredVariance(value: Double): this.type = {
+    if (isSet(k)) clear(k)
+    set(requiredVariance, value)
+  }
 
   /**
    * Computes a [[PCAModel]] that contains the principal components of the input vectors.
@@ -72,7 +92,11 @@ class PCA (override val uid: String) extends Estimator[PCAModel] with PCAParams
   override def fit(dataset: Dataset[_]): PCAModel = {
     transformSchema(dataset.schema, logging = true)
     val input = dataset.select($(inputCol)).rdd.map { case Row(v: Vector) => v}
-    val pca = new feature.PCA(k = $(k))
+    val pca = if (isSet(k)) {
+      new feature.PCA(k = $(k))
+    } else {
+      new feature.PCA(requiredVariance = $(requiredVariance))
+    }
     val pcaModel = pca.fit(input)
     copyValues(new PCAModel(uid, pcaModel.pc, pcaModel.explainedVariance).setParent(this))
   }
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/feature/PCA.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/feature/PCA.scala
index 30c403e547be..d4a6904a4fff 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/feature/PCA.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/feature/PCA.scala
@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@
 
 package org.apache.spark.mllib.feature
 
+import java.util.Arrays
+
 import org.apache.spark.annotation.Since
 import org.apache.spark.api.java.JavaRDD
 import org.apache.spark.mllib.linalg._
@@ -31,7 +33,14 @@ import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 @Since("1.4.0")
 class PCA @Since("1.4.0") (@Since("1.4.0") val k: Int) {
   require(k > 0,
-    s"Number of principal components must be positive but got ${k}")
+    s"Number of principal components must be positive but got $k")
+
+  var pcFilter: Either[Int, Double] = Left(k)
+
+  def this(requiredVariance: Double) = {
+    this(k = 1)
+    pcFilter = Right(requiredVariance)
+  }
 
   /**
    * Computes a [[PCAModel]] that contains the principal components of the input vectors.
@@ -44,7 +53,7 @@ class PCA @Since("1.4.0") (@Since("1.4.0") val k: Int) {
       s"source vector size is ${sources.first().size} must be greater than k=$k")
 
     val mat = new RowMatrix(sources)
-    val (pc, explainedVariance) = mat.computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(k)
+    val (pc, explainedVariance) = mat.computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(pcFilter)
     val densePC = pc match {
       case dm: DenseMatrix =>
         dm
@@ -66,7 +75,7 @@ class PCA @Since("1.4.0") (@Since("1.4.0") val k: Int) {
       case sv: SparseVector =>
         sv.toDense
     }
-    new PCAModel(k, densePC, denseExplainedVariance)
+    new PCAModel(explainedVariance.size, densePC, denseExplainedVariance)
   }
 
   /**
@@ -109,4 +118,4 @@ class PCAModel private[spark] (
           s"SparseVector or DenseVector. Instead got: ${vector.getClass}")
     }
   }
-}
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/distributed/RowMatrix.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/distributed/RowMatrix.scala
index f6183a5eaadc..d2fc3a861b58 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/distributed/RowMatrix.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/distributed/RowMatrix.scala
@@ -170,8 +170,7 @@ class RowMatrix @Since("1.0.0") (
    *
    * @note The conditions that decide which method to use internally and the default parameters are
    *       subject to change.
-   *
-   * @param k number of leading singular values to keep (0 < k <= n).
+    * @param k number of leading singular values to keep (0 < k <= n).
    *          It might return less than k if
    *          there are numerically zero singular values or there are not enough Ritz values
    *          converged before the maximum number of Arnoldi update iterations is reached (in case
@@ -321,7 +320,8 @@ class RowMatrix @Since("1.0.0") (
   /**
    * Computes the covariance matrix, treating each row as an observation. Note that this cannot
    * be computed on matrices with more than 65535 columns.
-   * @return a local dense matrix of size n x n
+    *
+    * @return a local dense matrix of size n x n
    */
   @Since("1.0.0")
   def computeCovariance(): Matrix = {
@@ -379,15 +379,21 @@ class RowMatrix @Since("1.0.0") (
    *
    * Note that this cannot be computed on matrices with more than 65535 columns.
    *
-   * @param k number of top principal components.
+   * @param filter either the number of top principal components or variance
+   *               retained by the minimal set of principal components.
    * @return a matrix of size n-by-k, whose columns are principal components, and
    * a vector of values which indicate how much variance each principal component
    * explains
    */
   @Since("1.6.0")
-  def computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(k: Int): (Matrix, Vector) = {
+  def computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(filter: Either[Int, Double])
+      : (Matrix, Vector) = {
     val n = numCols().toInt
-    require(k > 0 && k <= n, s"k = $k out of range (0, n = $n]")
+    filter match {
+      case Left(k) => require(k > 0 && k <= n, s"k = $k out of range (0, n = $n]")
+      case Right(requiredVariance) => require(requiredVariance > 0.0 && requiredVariance <= 1.0,
+        s"requiredVariance = $requiredVariance out of range (0, 1.0]")
+    }
 
     val Cov = computeCovariance().toBreeze.asInstanceOf[BDM[Double]]
 
@@ -396,6 +402,17 @@ class RowMatrix @Since("1.0.0") (
     val eigenSum = s.data.sum
     val explainedVariance = s.data.map(_ / eigenSum)
 
+    val k = filter match {
+      case Left(k) => k
+      case Right(requiredVariance) =>
+        val minFeatures = explainedVariance
+          .scanLeft(0.0)(_ + _)
+          .indexWhere(_ >= requiredVariance)
+        require(minFeatures > 0 && minFeatures <= n, s"minFeatures computed using " +
+          s"requiredVariance was $minFeatures and was out of range (0, n = $n]")
+        minFeatures
+    }
+
     if (k == n) {
       (Matrices.dense(n, k, u.data), Vectors.dense(explainedVariance))
     } else {
@@ -413,7 +430,7 @@ class RowMatrix @Since("1.0.0") (
    */
   @Since("1.0.0")
   def computePrincipalComponents(k: Int): Matrix = {
-    computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(k)._1
+    computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(Left(k))._1
   }
 
   /**
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/PCASuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/PCASuite.scala
index f372ec58269e..75781fc82edd 100644
--- a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/PCASuite.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/PCASuite.scala
@@ -28,6 +28,13 @@ import org.apache.spark.sql.Row
 
 class PCASuite extends SparkFunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext with DefaultReadWriteTest {
 
+  val data = Array(
+    Vectors.sparse(5, Seq((1, 1.0), (3, 7.0))),
+    Vectors.dense(2.0, 0.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0),
+    Vectors.dense(4.0, 0.0, 0.0, 6.0, 7.0)
+  )
+  lazy val dataRDD = sc.parallelize(data, 2)
+
   test("params") {
     ParamsSuite.checkParams(new PCA)
     val mat = Matrices.dense(2, 2, Array(0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0)).asInstanceOf[DenseMatrix]
@@ -37,14 +44,6 @@ class PCASuite extends SparkFunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext with DefaultRead
   }
 
   test("pca") {
-    val data = Array(
-      Vectors.sparse(5, Seq((1, 1.0), (3, 7.0))),
-      Vectors.dense(2.0, 0.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0),
-      Vectors.dense(4.0, 0.0, 0.0, 6.0, 7.0)
-    )
-
-    val dataRDD = sc.parallelize(data, 2)
-
     val mat = new RowMatrix(dataRDD)
     val pc = mat.computePrincipalComponents(3)
     val expected = mat.multiply(pc).rows
@@ -81,4 +80,25 @@ class PCASuite extends SparkFunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext with DefaultRead
     val newInstance = testDefaultReadWrite(instance)
     assert(newInstance.pc === instance.pc)
   }
+
+  test("should return model with minimal number of features that retain given level of variance") {
+    // given
+    val df = sqlContext.createDataFrame(dataRDD.zipWithIndex()).toDF("features", "index")
+
+    // when
+    val trimmed = new PCA()
+      .setInputCol("features")
+      .setOutputCol("pca_features")
+      .setRequiredVariance(0.9)
+      .fit(df)
+
+    // then
+    val pcaWithExpectedK = new PCA()
+      .setInputCol("features")
+      .setOutputCol("pca_features")
+      .setK(2)
+      .fit(df)
+    assert(trimmed.explainedVariance === pcaWithExpectedK.explainedVariance)
+    assert(trimmed.pc === pcaWithExpectedK.pc)
+  }
 }
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/feature/PCASuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/feature/PCASuite.scala
index a8d82932d390..e559d075fa30 100644
--- a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/feature/PCASuite.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/feature/PCASuite.scala
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ class PCASuite extends SparkFunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext {
     val pca = new PCA(k).fit(dataRDD)
 
     val mat = new RowMatrix(dataRDD)
-    val (pc, explainedVariance) = mat.computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(k)
+    val (pc, explainedVariance) = mat.computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(Left(k))
 
     val pca_transform = pca.transform(dataRDD).collect()
     val mat_multiply = mat.multiply(pc).rows.collect()
@@ -45,4 +45,15 @@ class PCASuite extends SparkFunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext {
     assert(pca_transform.toSet === mat_multiply.toSet)
     assert(pca.explainedVariance === explainedVariance)
   }
+
+  test("should return model with minimal number of features that retain given level of variance") {
+    // when
+    val trimmed = new PCA(requiredVariance = 0.90).fit(dataRDD)
+
+    // then
+    val pcaWithExpectedK = new PCA(k = 2).fit(dataRDD)
+    assert(trimmed.k === pcaWithExpectedK.k)
+    assert(trimmed.explainedVariance === pcaWithExpectedK.explainedVariance)
+    assert(trimmed.pc === pcaWithExpectedK.pc)
+  }
 }
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/distributed/RowMatrixSuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/distributed/RowMatrixSuite.scala
index 2dff52c601d8..5f22f0131c84 100644
--- a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/distributed/RowMatrixSuite.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/distributed/RowMatrixSuite.scala
@@ -204,7 +204,7 @@ class RowMatrixSuite extends SparkFunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext {
 
   test("pca") {
     for (mat <- Seq(denseMat, sparseMat); k <- 1 to n) {
-      val (pc, expVariance) = mat.computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(k)
+      val (pc, expVariance) = mat.computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(Left(k))
       assert(pc.numRows === n)
       assert(pc.numCols === k)
       assertColumnEqualUpToSign(pc.toBreeze.asInstanceOf[BDM[Double]], principalComponents, k)