Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues to rapidly expand its cloud computing offerings, with a focus on both performance and efficiency. This week saw the general availability of Amazon EC2 M8azn instances, powered by fifth-generation AMD EPYC processors, offering the highest maximum CPU frequency currently available in the cloud at 5 GHz. The launch comes as AWS boasts over 1,160 Amazon EC2 instance types, a number that continues to grow.
The M8azn instances represent a significant performance upgrade over the previous generation M5zn instances, delivering up to two times the compute performance, 4.3 times higher memory bandwidth, and a 10 times larger L3 cache. Networking throughput is also improved, offering up to two times the speed, alongside a threefold increase in Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) throughput. These instances are built on the AWS Nitro System, utilizing sixth-generation Nitro Cards.
AWS positions the M8azn instances as ideal for demanding workloads including real-time financial analytics, high-performance computing, high-frequency trading, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, gaming, and simulation modeling across industries like automotive, aerospace, energy, and telecommunications. The instances feature a 4:1 ratio of memory to virtual CPU (vCPU) and are available in nine sizes, ranging from 2 to 96 vCPUs with up to 384 GiB of memory, including two bare metal variants.
The expansion of AWS’s compute options comes alongside advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning services. Amazon Bedrock now supports six fully managed open weights models: DeepSeek V3.2, MiniMax M2.1, GLM 4.7, GLM 4.7 Flash, Kimi K2.5, and Qwen3 Coder Next. These models cater to a range of applications, from reasoning and agentic intelligence to autonomous coding with large output windows, and offer cost-efficient alternatives for production deployment. These models are powered by Project Mantle and are compatible with OpenAI API specifications.
Further enhancing security and performance, Amazon Bedrock now supports AWS PrivateLink for the bedrock-mantle endpoint, in addition to existing support for the bedrock-runtime endpoint. Project Mantle, a distributed inference engine for large-scale machine learning model serving, provides serverless inference with quality of service controls and automated capacity management. AWS PrivateLink support for OpenAI API-compatible endpoints is currently available in 14 AWS Regions.
For Kubernetes users, Amazon EKS Auto Mode now offers enhanced logging capabilities through Amazon CloudWatch Vended Logs. This allows for the collection of logs from Auto Mode’s managed Kubernetes capabilities, including compute autoscaling, block storage, load balancing, and pod networking, at a reduced price compared to standard CloudWatch Logs. Logs can be delivered to CloudWatch Logs, Amazon S3, or Amazon Data Firehose destinations.
Amazon OpenSearch Serverless has also introduced Collection Groups, enabling users to share OpenSearch Compute Units (OCUs) across collections with different AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) keys. This shared compute model aims to reduce overall OCU costs while maintaining collection-level security and access controls. Collection Groups also allow for the specification of minimum OCU allocations alongside maximum OCU limits, ensuring baseline capacity for latency-sensitive applications.
Finally, Amazon RDS now supports backup configuration during snapshot restore operations. Users can now view and modify the backup retention period and preferred backup window before and during restore operations, eliminating the need for post-restoration modifications. This feature is available for all Amazon RDS database engines and Amazon Aurora editions in all AWS commercial Regions and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.
Upcoming AWS events include AWS Summits in Paris, London, and Bengaluru in April 2026, the AWS AI and Data Conference 2026 in Ireland on March 12, and various AWS Community Days events in Ahmedabad, Slovakia, and Pune in February and March 2026. AWS continues to encourage developers to join the AWS Builder Center to connect with peers and access development resources.
