Amazon Web Services Announces General Availability of EC2 R9g and R9gd Instances Powered by AWS Graviton5 Processors

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Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon.com, has officially announced the general availability of the Amazon EC2 R9g and R9gd instance families. Powered by the newly introduced AWS Graviton5 processors—touted by the company as the most energy-efficient silicon architecture it has ever engineered—these memory-optimized virtual server instances are designed to handle demanding cloud workloads ranging from distributed real-time analytics to large in-memory databases.

The launch marks a significant milestone in the evolution of AWS’s proprietary silicon strategy. According to technical specifications released by the cloud computing giant, the new R9g instances deliver up to a 25% improvement in raw compute performance compared to their predecessors, the Graviton4-based R8g instances. This leap forward is achieved while simultaneously consuming less energy per unit of compute, aligning with broader corporate sustainability initiatives across the technology sector.

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Target Workloads and Architectural Enhancements

The R9g instances are explicitly engineered for memory-intensive applications. Target workloads include open-source and proprietary relational databases, high-performance in-memory caches such as Redis, Valkey, and Memcached, and real-time big data analytics pipelines. Furthermore, the instances provide a robust foundation for Linux-based environments, containerized deployments managed via Docker and Kubernetes (including Amazon EKS and Amazon ECS), and software written in performance-sensitive programming languages including C, C++, Rust, Go, Java, Python, .NET Core, Node.js, Ruby, and PHP.

For workloads requiring high-performance temporary storage, the R9gd variant introduces high-speed, local NVMe-based solid-state drive (SSD) block-level storage. These instances are tailored for scenarios requiring low-latency scratch space, such as distributed caching systems and large-scale open-source databases that benefit from localized caching tiers.

A notable architectural upgrade in the R9g and R9gd families is the integration of Instance Bandwidth Configuration (IBC). This capability allows systems architects to dynamically adjust bandwidth allocation between Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) networking by up to 25%. Such fine-grained control enables organizations to optimize network throughput based on the precise demands of data-heavy applications.

Evolution of the AWS Graviton Timeline

The journey toward Graviton5 represents a rapid and calculated progression in custom silicon design by Amazon Web Services, reflecting the industry-wide shift away from general-purpose merchant silicon toward specialized processors optimized for specific cloud workloads.

November 2018 (re:Invent): AWS introduces its first-generation custom ARM-based processor, simply named AWS Graviton, targeting scale-out applications.
December 2019: The launch of Graviton2 brings a 7x performance improvement and 4x core count increase over the first generation, sparking widespread enterprise adoption.
November 2021: Graviton3 debuts, delivering up to 25% better compute performance than Graviton2 and pioneering the use of DDR5 memory in cloud instances.
Late 2024: AWS rolls out Graviton4-powered instances, such as the R8g family, establishing new benchmarks for energy efficiency and compute density.
September 2025: AWS officially announces the general availability of Graviton5 processors, spearheaded by the release of the R9g and R9gd memory-optimized instance families.

Industry analysts note that this steady cadence of releases has enabled AWS to capture significant market share in enterprise cloud deployments, particularly among cost-conscious and performance-driven engineering teams seeking alternatives to traditional x86 architectures.

Security Advancements and the Nitro Isolation Engine

Underpinning the R9g and R9gd instances is the AWS Nitro System, a combination of dedicated hardware and software components that offloads virtualization, storage, and networking tasks from the main CPU. By removing these virtualization overheads, the Nitro System enables instances to achieve near-bare-metal performance while maintaining strict security boundaries.

A key security differentiator for the new generation is the inclusion of the Nitro Isolation Engine (NIE). Originally introduced earlier in the year with the C9g and M9g families, the NIE enforces absolute isolation between virtual machines. It achieves this by mediating all access to virtual machine memory, CPU register states, and input/output (I/O) devices through a minimal, highly scrutinized set of application programming interfaces (APIs).

Amazon EC2 R9g and R9gd instances powered by AWS Graviton5 processors are now generally available | Amazon Web Services

Crucially, AWS has subjected the Nitro Isolation Engine to formal verification—a mathematical technique used to prove rigorously that the hardware and software behave precisely as intended under all possible execution paths, rather than merely passing empirical test cases. This methodology establishes the AWS Nitro System as the industry’s first formally verified cloud hypervisor, setting a new mathematical standard for cloud-native multi-tenant security. Detailed findings and operational scopes are outlined in an official technical white paper published by AWS.

Comprehensive Technical Specifications

To accommodate a wide array of enterprise deployment scales, both R9g and R9gd instance families are available in 11 distinct sizes, ranging from lightweight developer environments to massive bare-metal configurations.

The standard R9g instances are provisioned exclusively with Amazon EBS storage:

r9g.medium: 1 vCPU, 8 GiB Memory, Up to 15 Gbps Network Bandwidth, Up to 12 Gbps EBS Bandwidth
r9g.large: 2 vCPUs, 16 GiB Memory, Up to 15 Gbps Network Bandwidth, Up to 12 Gbps EBS Bandwidth
r9g.xlarge: 4 vCPUs, 32 GiB Memory, Up to 15 Gbps Network Bandwidth, Up to 12 Gbps EBS Bandwidth
r9g.2xlarge: 8 vCPUs, 64 GiB Memory, Up to 17 Gbps Network Bandwidth, Up to 12 Gbps EBS Bandwidth
r9g.4xlarge: 16 vCPUs, 128 GiB Memory, Up to 17 Gbps Network Bandwidth, Up to 12 Gbps EBS Bandwidth
r9g.8xlarge: 32 vCPUs, 256 GiB Memory, 17 Gbps Network Bandwidth, 12 Gbps EBS Bandwidth
r9g.12xlarge: 48 vCPUs, 384 GiB Memory, 25 Gbps Network Bandwidth, 18 Gbps EBS Bandwidth
r9g.16xlarge: 64 vCPUs, 512 GiB Memory, 34 Gbps Network Bandwidth, 24 Gbps EBS Bandwidth
r9g.24xlarge: 96 vCPUs, 768 GiB Memory, 50 Gbps Network Bandwidth, 36 Gbps EBS Bandwidth
r9g.48xlarge & r9g.metal-48xl: 192 vCPUs, 1536 GiB Memory, 100 Gbps Network Bandwidth, 72 Gbps EBS Bandwidth

The storage-optimized R9gd variants supplement these specifications with high-performance local NVMe SSD storage:

r9gd.medium: 1 vCPU, 8 GiB Memory, 1 x 59 GB NVMe SSD
r9gd.large: 2 vCPUs, 16 GiB Memory, 1 x 118 GB NVMe SSD
r9gd.xlarge: 4 vCPUs, 32 GiB Memory, 1 x 237 GB NVMe SSD
r9gd.2xlarge: 8 vCPUs, 64 GiB Memory, 1 x 474 GB NVMe SSD
r9gd.4xlarge: 16 vCPUs, 128 GiB Memory, 1 x 950 GB NVMe SSD
r9gd.8xlarge: 32 vCPUs, 256 GiB Memory, 1 x 1900 GB NVMe SSD
r9gd.12xlarge: 48 vCPUs, 384 GiB Memory, 3 x 950 GB NVMe SSD
r9gd.16xlarge: 64 vCPUs, 512 GiB Memory, 1 x 3800 GB NVMe SSD
r9gd.24xlarge: 96 vCPUs, 768 GiB Memory, 3 x 1900 GB NVMe SSD
r9gd.48xlarge & r9gd.metal-48xl: 192 vCPUs, 1536 GiB Memory, 3 x 3800 GB NVMe SSD

Migration Pathways and Ecosystem Support

Migrating existing applications from Graviton4 (R8g) to Graviton5 (R9g) requires minimal friction. According to AWS engineering documentation, most applications do not require source code modifications. Organizations can simply provision equivalent R9g instance sizes to realize immediate performance gains, higher network bandwidth, and larger L3 cache capacities. For containerized architectures, multi-architecture container images built for the Arm64 instruction set execute natively across Amazon EKS, Amazon ECS, and standard Kubernetes distributions.

To facilitate adoption, AWS supports a broad range of Arm-compatible operating systems, including Amazon Linux 2023, Amazon Linux 2, Ubuntu 22.04 and newer, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.4+, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3+, and Debian 12+. Furthermore, developers can leverage tools such as the AWS Graviton Getting Started Guide, the Graviton Savings Dashboard for cost tracking, and AWS Transform—an automated code transformation utility designed to assist enterprises in migrating legacy Java applications from x86 architectures to Arm.

Pricing, Availability, and Industry Implications

At launch, Amazon EC2 R9g and R9gd instances are immediately accessible in select AWS Cloud Regions, including US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Frankfurt).

Customers can procure the new instances through multiple purchasing models, encompassing On-Demand instances, Savings Plans, Spot Instances, Dedicated Instances, and Dedicated Hosts. Pricing structures vary by region and instance size, with detailed schedules available via the official Amazon EC2 pricing portal.

Market observers note that the deployment of Graviton5 further solidifies AWS’s competitive advantage in cloud infrastructure economics. By designing custom silicon tailored to specific workloads, AWS is able to pass performance efficiencies and cost savings down to enterprise consumers while insulating its supply chain from reliance on traditional merchant processor roadmaps. As cloud environments increasingly prioritize energy efficiency and strict data isolation, the combination of Graviton5 and the formally verified Nitro Isolation Engine sets a new benchmark for enterprise cloud architecture.