AWS launches EC2 C9g and C9gd instances powered by Graviton5 processors

Amazon Web Services announced the general availability of the EC2 C9g and C9gd compute‑optimized instances that use the new Graviton5 ARM‑based processor. The instances, launched on 30 June 2026, offer up to 25 % higher per‑vCPU performance than the prior‑generation C8g, alongside faster DDR5 memory, increased L3 cache (48 MiB vs 36 MiB), and up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth. They target workloads such as analytics, video transcoding, AI agents and high‑performance computing.

The C9g family ranges from a 1‑vCPU, 2 GiB medium size to a 192‑vCPU, 384 GiB 48xlarge model. The C9gd variant adds local NVMe SSD storage with up to 30 % higher I/O performance, making it suitable for temporary scratch space in ML inference or ad‑tech pipelines. Both types are available in the US East (Ohio and N. Virginia), US West (Oregon) and Europe (Frankfurt) regions, with additional regions planned.

Technical analysis by a developer confirmed that the Graviton5 CPU details match the M9g general‑purpose instances, showing the same Neoverse V3 core architecture, 3300 MHz clock, and new SVE2 instruction extensions. The Nitro Isolation Engine, written in Rust, provides enhanced VM isolation.