Amazon launches Graviton5 and M9g EC2 instances
Amazon Web Services announced Graviton5, its fifth-generation custom processor, at re:Invent. The chip powers new Amazon EC2 M9g instances and delivers up to 25% better compute performance than the previous generation while maintaining energy efficiency.
AWS built Graviton5 to meet rising customer demand for faster processing, lower costs, and sustainability goals. For the third year running, more than half of AWS’s new CPU capacity is powered by Graviton processors, and 98% of the top 1,000 EC2 customers are already using Graviton instances.
Architecture: core density and L3 cache
Graviton5 offers the highest CPU core density available on Amazon EC2, packing 192 cores into a single package. That design shortens the physical distance data must travel, cutting inter-core communication latency by up to 33% and increasing bandwidth.
One of the most significant improvements is the L3 cache, now five times larger than on Graviton4. That high-speed memory buffer gives each core access to 2.6 times more L3 cache, reducing wait times for data and improving application responsiveness. Memory performance was also improved to handle larger datasets.
Network bandwidth increased by up to 15%, and Amazon Elastic Block Store bandwidth rose on average by 20% across instance sizes.
Security and the AWS Nitro System
Graviton5 instances run on the AWS Nitro System. They use sixth-generation Nitro Cards to offload virtualization, storage, and networking functions onto dedicated hardware. This architecture enforces a zero-operator-access model, preventing operators from accessing EC2 servers or customer memory.
The new chip adds a Nitro Isolation Engine that employs formal mathematical verification to ensure workloads are isolated from each other and from AWS operators. Graviton5 is built on a 3nm process and includes system-level optimizations such as bare-die cooling.
Real-world customer results
Several customers tested Graviton5 and reported notable gains:
SAP: Recorded a 35% to 60% increase in OLTP query performance on SAP HANA Cloud using M9g instances.
Atlassian: Measured 30% better performance and 20% lower latency in Jira tests compared with the previous generation.
Synopsys: Reported up to 35% faster run times for chip-design tools such as Fusion Compiler and PrimeTime.
Airbnb: Saw performance improvements up to 20% compared with Graviton4 in production search tests.
Availability
Amazon EC2 M9g instances, based on Graviton5 and aimed at general-purpose workloads, are available in preview. C9g (compute-optimized) and R9g (memory-optimized) instances are planned for 2026.
For more details, see the AWS Graviton product page and the Graviton documentation.
