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Now available: Amazon EC2 M9g and M9gd instances powered by new AWS Graviton5 processors | Amazon Web Services (opens in new tab)

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AWS has generally released Amazon EC2 M9g and M9gd instances, powered by its Graviton5 processors. They deliver higher compute, memory, networking, and storage performance while improving energy efficiency and security. M9g targets general-purpose workloads, while M9gd adds up to 11.4 TB of local NVMe SSD storage for low-latency applications.

Graviton5’s Performance Improvements

  • Graviton5 provides up to:
    • 25% better compute performance than Graviton4
    • 35% faster web applications and ML inference
    • 30% faster database workloads
  • It includes:
    • 192 CPU cores
    • Five times more L3 cache
    • Up to 33% lower inter-core latency
    • DDR5-8800 memory
    • PCIe Gen6 support
  • These features improve concurrency, memory bandwidth, and CPU-heavy workloads such as agentic AI, code generation, real-time reasoning, and multi-step orchestration.
  • Customer results include:
    • ClickHouse: 36% better performance than M8g without code changes
    • Honeycomb: 36% higher throughput per core
    • HubSpot: up to 60% shorter MySQL query duration

Networking and Storage Enhancements

  • M9g and M9gd provide:
    • Up to 15% higher network bandwidth
    • Up to 20% higher EBS bandwidth on average
    • Up to twice the network bandwidth on the largest instance
  • Instance Bandwidth Configuration lets customers shift bandwidth between EBS and VPC networking by up to 25%.
  • This is useful for databases, query processing, logging, and other workloads with demanding I/O requirements.

Nitro Isolation Engine

  • M9g and M9gd introduce the Nitro Isolation Engine, an enhancement to the AWS Nitro System.
  • It isolates virtual machines by controlling access to:
    • Memory
    • CPU register state
    • I/O devices
  • The component uses formal verification to mathematically prove isolation behavior rather than relying solely on testing.
  • AWS describes Nitro as the first formally verified cloud hypervisor.

M9g General-Purpose Instances

  • M9g instances provide one vCPU per 4 GiB of memory.
  • Suitable workloads include:
    • Application servers and microservices
    • Web applications and containerized applications
    • Midsize data stores and caching fleets
    • Gaming servers
    • Large-scale Java applications
    • Code repositories
    • Agentic AI workloads

M9gd Instances with Local NVMe Storage

  • M9gd adds up to 11.4 TB of local NVMe SSD storage.
  • It offers up to 30% higher IOPS and storage performance than Graviton4-based M8gd instances.
  • Recommended for:
    • Low-latency caches and scratch files
    • Data and log processing
    • Media processing
    • Batch workloads
    • Key-value stores
    • Gaming and application servers

Availability and Migration Resources

  • M9g and M9gd are available in:
    • US East (N. Virginia)
    • US East (Ohio)
    • US West (Oregon)
    • Europe (Frankfurt)
  • Purchasing options include Savings Plans, On-Demand, Spot Instances, Dedicated Instances, and Dedicated Hosts.
  • AWS provides a Graviton Getting Started Guide, Graviton Savings Dashboard, and AWS Transform for migrating Java applications from x86 to Graviton.

Organizations seeking better compute efficiency, higher I/O throughput, or lower-cost Arm infrastructure should evaluate M9g for general-purpose workloads and M9gd when local NVMe storage is required.