AWS launched Graviton5, its most powerful Arm-based processor to date, introducing a 192-core design, larger caches, and higher network and storage bandwidth for Amazon EC2. The new chip targets general-purpose, compute-intensive, and memory-heavy workloads, offering up to 25% higher performance than the prior generation while advancing AWS’s sustainability and security roadmap. Graviton now powers more than half of all new CPU capacity added to AWS for the third consecutive year, with 98% of AWS’s top 1,000 EC2 customers already using the architecture.
The new Graviton5-based M9g instances increase performance through a 5x larger L3 cache, 2.6x more cache per core versus Graviton4, faster memory speeds, and up to 15% higher network throughput—doubling network bandwidth on the largest instance sizes. AWS also introduced a new sixth-generation Nitro subsystem and the Nitro Isolation Engine, which applies formal verification to guarantee workload isolation. Built on a 3nm process with a bare-die cooling design, Graviton5 targets both performance and energy efficiency, reducing thermal resistance and fan power while supporting workloads like real-time gaming, big-data analytics, EDA, and high-performance databases.
Customer benchmarks across industries reaffirm gains from the new architecture, including 25–60% uplift depending on workload type. Graviton5-based M9g instances enter preview immediately, with C9g for compute-intensive tasks and R9g for memory-optimized deployments scheduled for 2026.
• Delivers up to 25% higher compute performance than previous-gen Graviton4
• 192 cores and a 5x larger L3 cache boost scale-out and memory-intensive workloads
• Up to 15% higher network bandwidth; largest instances see up to 2x
• Built on 3nm with bare-die cooling for improved thermals and energy efficiency
• Launches a new Nitro Isolation Engine with formally verified security guarantees
• More than half of new AWS CPU capacity now uses Graviton
• M9g preview available now; C9g and R9g planned for 2026
“AWS Graviton5-based Amazon EC2 instances are some of the fastest EC2 instances we have ever tested,” said Denis Sheahan, Principal Performance Engineer at Airbnb. “In our performance tests… we are seeing improvements of up to 25% over other system architectures of the same generation.”
🌐 Analysis: Graviton5 extends AWS’s multi-year strategy to shift customers onto first-party Arm CPUs with measurable gains in performance, cost, and sustainability. The Nitro Isolation Engine further differentiates AWS at the infrastructure security layer, while the move to 3nm aligns with industry trends toward higher core density and efficiency—mirroring custom silicon work from Google (Axion), Microsoft (Cobalt), and Alibaba. As competition intensifies in AI compute, AWS’s investment in high-volume general-purpose CPUs signals a continued commitment to lowering cloud cost per unit of performance for mainstream workloads.
