std::vector has a fill constructor which creates a vector of n elements and fills with the value specified. a has the type std::vector<std::vector<int>> which means that it is a vector of a vector. Hence your default value to fill the vector is a vector itself, not an int. Therefore the second options is the correct one.
std::vector<std::vector<int>> array_2d(rows, std::vector<int>(cols, 0));
This creates a rows * cols 2D array where each element is 0. The default value is std::vector<int>(cols, 0) which means each row has a vector which has cols number of element, each being 0.