Amazon Web Services (AWS) has advanced cloud computing with its custom-engineered Graviton chips, initially launched in 2018. The Graviton chips, based on Arm architecture, are designed to offer both high performance and energy efficiency. While Arm-based chips have been widely used in mobile phones due to their power-saving features, incorporating them into cloud environments posed significant challenges. AWS's engineering team at Annapurna Labs overcame these hurdles, refining the Arm design to develop the Graviton chip series. The latest iteration, Graviton4, is notable for its impressive capabilities, delivering four times the performance of its predecessor, Graviton1, while using 60% less energy than comparable Amazon EC2 instances.
The Graviton4 chip contains 73 billion transistors, underscoring its substantial computational power. This innovation has attracted a range of high-profile AWS customers, including SAP, Epic Games, and SmugMug. Epic Games, for instance, leverages Graviton4 to enhance the performance and reliability of Fortnite, a game with over 350 million accounts. AWS continues to lead the industry in custom silicon for the cloud, not only with Graviton but also with newer chips like Trainium and Inferentia, which are optimized for AI workloads. These advancements mark AWS's commitment to pushing the boundaries of cloud processing capabilities, making sophisticated computing power more accessible and efficient for diverse applications.
