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Since previewing at AWS re:Invent 2025, we are announcing the general availability of new memory-optimized Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) X8i instances. These instances are powered by custom Intel Xeon 6 processors with a sustained 3.9GHz all-core turbo frequency only available on AWS. These certified SAP instances provide the highest performance and fastest memory bandwidth among comparable Intel processors in the cloud.
X8i instances are ideal for memory-intensive workloads, including in-memory databases such as SAP HANA, traditional large-scale databases, data analytics, and electronic design automation (EDA) that require high computing power and large memory requirements.
These instances provide 1.5 times more memory capacity (up to 6 TB) and 3.3 times more memory bandwidth compared to previous generation X2i instances. These instances offer up to 43% higher performance compared to higher-gain X2i instances for some real-world workloads. They provide up to 50% faster SAP Application Performance Standard (SAPS) performance, up to 47% faster PostgreSQL performance, up to 88% faster Memcached performance and up to 46% faster AI inference performance.
During the preview, customers like RISE with SAP leveraged up to 6TB of memory capacity with 50% more computing power compared to X2i instances. This enabled faster transaction processing and reduced query response time for SAP HANA jobs. Orion reduced the number of active cores on X8i instances compared to X2idn instances while maintaining performance thresholds and reduced SQL Server license costs by 50%.
X8i instances
X8i instances are available in 14 sizes including three larger instance sizes (48x wide, 64xlargeand 96xlarge) so you can choose the right size for your enlargement application and two bare metal sizes (metal-48xl and metal-96xl) to deploy workloads that benefit from direct access to physical resources. X8i instances have up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth with Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) support and up to 80 Gbps throughput to the Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS).
Here are the specs for the X8i instances:
| The name of the instance | vCPU | Memory (GiB) |
Network Bandwidth (Gbps) | EBS Bandwidth (Gbps) |
| x8i.large | 2 | 32 | Until 12.5 | Up to 10 |
| x8i.xlarge | 4 | 64 | Until 12.5 | Up to 10 |
| x8i.2xlarge | 8 | 128 | Until the 15th | Up to 10 |
| x8i.4xlarge | 16 | 256 | Until the 15th | Up to 10 |
| x8i.8xlarge | 32 | 512 | 15 | 10 |
| x8i.12xlarge | 48 | 768 | 22.5 | 15 |
| x8i.16xlarge | 64 | 1.024 | 30 | 20 |
| x8i.24xlarge | 96 | 1,536 | 40 | 30 |
| x8i.32xlarge | 128 | 2,048 | 50 | 40 |
| x8i.48xlarge | 192 | 3,072 | 75 | 60 |
| x8i.64xbig | 256 | 4,096 | 80 | 70 |
| x8i.96xlarge | 384 | 6,144 | 100 | 80 |
| x8i.metal-48xl | 192 | 3,072 | 75 | 60 |
| x8i.metal-96xl | 384 | 6,144 | 100 | 80 |
X8i instances support the Instance Bandwidth Configuration (IBC) feature like other eighth generation instance types and offer flexibility for resource allocation between network and EBS bandwidth. You can scale your network or EBS bandwidth by up to 25%, improving database performance, query processing speed, and logging efficiency. These instances also use sixth-generation AWS Nitro cards, which offload CPU virtualization, storage, and networking functions to dedicated hardware and software, increasing the performance and security of your workloads.
Now available
Amazon EC2 X8i instances are now available in US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Frankfurt). For regional availability and future schedule, search for instance type v CloudFormation on the Resources tab of the AWS options by region.
You can purchase these instances as On-Demand Instances, Savings Plan, and Instant Instances. To learn more, visit the Amazon EC2 Pricing page.
Try X8i instances in the Amazon EC2 console. To learn more, visit the Amazon EC2 X8i instances page and submit feedback on AWS re:Post for EC2 or through your usual AWS support contacts.
— Channy
Updated January 21, 2026 – Fixed to 3.3x memory bandwidth from 3.4.