New instances bring AWS’ Graviton5 CPUs to high-performance cloud workloads

Amazon Web Services Inc.‘s next-generation silicon is working its way deeper into the company’s cloud compute infrastructure offerings with the debut of the new Amazon EC2 C9g and EC2 C9gd instances today.

The new virtual machines are powered by the company’s flagship AWS Graviton5 processors, which are central processing units that have been designed to deliver superior compute performance for diverse cloud workloads, including artificial intelligence applications.

The C9g and C9gd instances debut just weeks after AWS launched its general-purpose M9g and M9gd instances, and make the new CPUs available for a range of higher-performance workloads.

In a blog post, AWS Principal Developer Advocate Sébastien Stormacq said the C9g and C9gd instances are designed for compute-intensive and data-heavy tasks including video encoding, scientific modeling and distributed analytics, where performance and efficiency are vital. He explained that the Graviton5 chips provide a major leap forward in this regard, with up to 25% higher performance per vCPU compared to the previous-generation C8g instances that were powered by Graviton4.