The new EC2 R8gd servers, built on Graviton4 chips, bring up to 11.4 TB of local NVMe storage and deliver roughly 30% higher performance for workloads running in AWS’s Europe‑based sovereign cloud.
AWS has announced the launch of new R8gd EC2 instances, powered by its latest Graviton4 silicon, for customers operating in the Europe‑based sovereign cloud.
What are R8gd instances?
The R8gd family is part of the memory‑optimized R series, offering up to 96 vCPUs, 1.5 TB of RAM and a massive 11.4 TB of local NVMe storage per server. The instances are built on the Graviton4 ARM‑based processor, which AWS says delivers roughly 30 % higher performance compared with the previous Graviton3‑based R7gd models.
Key specifications
- 96 vCPUs (Graviton4)
- 1.5 TB RAM
- 11.4 TB local NVMe SSD
- Up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth
- Available in the AWS Europe (Zurich) sovereign cloud region
Target workloads
R8gd instances are aimed at high‑performance, data‑intensive workloads such as in‑memory databases, real‑time analytics, and large‑scale scientific simulations that benefit from both abundant memory and fast local storage.
Because they run in the sovereign cloud, the instances also meet strict data residency and compliance requirements for European customers, making them suitable for regulated industries like finance and healthcare.
Pricing and availability
AWS has not disclosed exact pricing yet, but the R8gd instances are expected to be billed on an on‑demand per‑second basis, with reserved and spot options to follow. The instances are available immediately in the Europe (Zurich) sovereign cloud region.