AWS launches an 896-core instance, double what its competitors offer

AUSTIN, Texas, June 11, 2024 — Liftr Insights today revealed that it detected AWS’ recent launch of an 896-core instance type, surpassing the highest core count ever recorded by a cloud provider.

This is important for businesses looking to improve their performance. If they don’t use them, their competitors might.

Liftr data shows that the previous high core count AWS instance had 448 cores and first appeared in May 2021. Before that, the largest instance available from the six largest cloud providers (accounting for over 75% of the public cloud space) was a 384-core instance. instance first offered by Azure in 2019.

Prices for this new instance type vary by configuration and city, from around $150 per hour to over $400 per hour, with an average price of $263.10.

Enterprises are willing to pay these prices to achieve high thread counts that improve performance, especially for databases like SAP HANA and Oracle. Liftr Insights tracks many features, including the high memory configuration associated with these instances and the on-demand price.

Caption: Figure: Liftr Insights identifies new cloud instance with 896 cores, double what competitors offer.

“It’s not beneficial for AWS to deploy solutions that won’t sell, especially at these price points,” says Tab Schadt, CEO of Liftr Insights. “They spend a lot of time and money on market knowledge. Other companies can benefit from their research into what and where they offer it for a fraction of this cost.

Consistent with other AWS deployments, this instance first appeared in the US East and West Coast regions, but they have also deployed these instance types in Seoul and Sydney. The 448-core instances were deployed across the world from the start, but the first appearances were in Dublin, Frankfurt and Singapore. Deployments of the 448-core instance did not appear in Seoul and Sydney until 3 and 6 months later. The early deployment of this 896-core instance in regions other than the United States is a strong sign of demand in these regions.

“Perhaps we will see larger instances in the near future, showing even greater demand for high-performance workloads,” says Schadt. “At least we will keep an eye open to see if and when Azure or other cloud providers respond in kind.”

Source: Insights Liftr