Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced the Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) U7inh instance, a new addition to its EC2 High Memory family.
Developed in collaboration with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), the U7inh instance became generally available on December 16, as announced in an AWS News Blog.
Key Features and Collaboration
The U7inh instance is powered by HPE’s 16-socket Compute Scale-up Server 3200, a notable launch from HPE in 2023.
Built on AWS Nitro System technology, this marks a rare occasion where AWS explicitly discloses the server hardware behind its EC2 cloud offerings—a detail highlighted by The Register.
Innovative Performance
Equipped with fourth-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, the U7inh instance supports:
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32TB of memory
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1920 vCPUs
According to AWS, it delivers the highest compute performance available in AWS, with the largest compute and memory capacities for running large-scale, mission-critical database workloads.
The U7inh offers significant improvements over its predecessor, the U7i instance family, which launched in May 2024. Specifically, it provides:
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Up to twice the vCPUs
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1.6 times the Elastic Block Store (EBS) bandwidth in a single instance
Customer-Centric Innovation
AWS noted that enterprise customers require high-performance infrastructure to scale their business applications.
These customers seek solutions that combine additional CPUs and memory with SAP certification to enable real-time business insights.
Additionally, AWS aims to address the needs of clients currently operating on-premises with HPE servers, offering them a seamless migration path to AWS.
This enables customers to leverage cloud benefits while maintaining familiarity with HPE hardware.
The introduction of the U7inh instance also appears to address feedback from customers regarding AWS’s lack of modular scaling and memory pooling features typically associated with HPE servers.
Regional Availability
The U7inh instances are currently available in two AWS regions:
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US East (Northern Virginia)
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US West (Oregon)
Recent EC2 Instance Innovations
AWS continues to expand its EC2 offerings with recent launches, including:
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UltraServers featuring Trainium2 chips—effectively combining four Trn2 instances into one node
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Storage-optimized I8g and I7ie instances
This latest release underscores AWS's commitment to delivering high-performance, scalable solutions tailored to the evolving needs of its enterprise customers.
