Google Cloud just flipped the switch on its C4N network-optimized virtual machines, making them generally available on Compute Engine. The machines deliver up to 400 Gbps VM-to-VM bandwidth and can process 95 million packets per second. For anyone running data-intensive workloads in the cloud, those numbers matter a lot.

The C4N instances were first previewed at Google Cloud Next ’26 in April. Now they’re available for production use, and the specs represent a meaningful leap over Google’s standard C4 series: up to 4x better bandwidth per virtual CPU and up to 8x higher egress bandwidth when routing through internet gateways.

What the C4N actually does differently

In technical terms, the C4N achieves its performance through Titanium offload technology, Google’s custom silicon designed to handle network processing without burdening the main CPU. The result is that 400 Gbps bandwidth figure, which represents the kind of throughput previously reserved for bare-metal servers or highly specialized configurations.

On the storage side, C4N supports up to 25 GiB/s throughput and nearly 1 million IOPS through Hyperdisk Extreme integration.