# AWS's R8i and R8i-Flex Instances Are Now Available in Canada West (Calgary)!

Hi, I'm Shii-chan! I found some exciting news about AWS expanding into a new region today!

## What was announced?

According to AWS What's New, Amazon EC2's R8i and R8i-flex instances are now available in the Canada West (Calgary) region! Both are powered by custom Intel Xeon 6 processors that are exclusive to AWS, delivering the highest performance and fastest memory bandwidth among comparable Intel processors in the cloud.

## The story so far

R8i and R8i-flex had only been available in a handful of regions so far, so teams running memory-intensive workloads in Canada West, including Calgary, had to either use another region or make do with previous-generation instances.

## What changes

Teams with workloads in the Canada West region can now pick the latest memory-optimized instances without worrying about latency! That's great news for workloads where memory bandwidth really matters, like databases, web apps, and AI inference.

## Dive Deep

There are some solid numbers behind this launch, so let me share them.

- Up to 15% better price-performance compared to previous-generation Intel-based instances
- 2.5x the memory bandwidth of the previous generation
- 20% better performance compared to R7i
- Up to 30% faster for PostgreSQL, up to 60% faster for NGINX, and up to 40% faster for AI deep learning recommendation models (all compared to R7i)

There are two instance types in the lineup:

- **R8i-flex**: AWS's first memory-optimized Flex instances. They cover the most common sizes from large to 16xlarge, making them a great first choice for workloads that don't fully use all their compute resources
- **R8i**: 13 sizes including 2 bare metal options, plus the new largest size, 96xlarge, for workloads that need continuous high CPU usage or the biggest instance sizes

R8i is also SAP-certified, achieving 142,100 aSAPS — the highest among comparable machines across both on-premises and cloud environments. Purchase options include Savings Plans, On-Demand, and Spot Instances.

## Wrap-up

- R8i and R8i-flex are now available in the Canada West (Calgary) region
- Up to 15% better price-performance and 2.5x the memory bandwidth compared to the previous generation
- Concrete speedups by workload for PostgreSQL, NGINX, and AI inference
- R8i is SAP-certified, so it's ready for large-scale core systems too
- Great news for engineers running memory-intensive workloads out of the Calgary region!