I’ve always been fascinated by how quickly we’re able to stand up new Regions and Availability Zones at AWS. Today there are 36 launched Regions and 114 launched Availability Zones. That’s amazing!

This past week at AWS was marked by significant expansion to our global infrastructure. The announcement of a new Region in the works for South America means customers will have more options for meeting their low latency and data residency requirements. Alongside the expansion, AWS announced the availability of numerous instance types in additional Regions.

In addition to the infrastructure expansion, AWS is also expanding the reach of Amazon Q Developer into Amazon OpenSearch Service.

Last week’s launches

• Introducing Amazon Q Developer in Amazon OpenSearch Service — Amazon Q Developer is now integrated with Amazon OpenSearch Service, providing AI-powered assistance to help developers quickly build search applications with relevant code suggestions and troubleshooting guidance.
• In the works – AWS South America (Chile) Region — AWS has announced plans for a new South America (Chile) Region, expanding its global infrastructure to provide lower latency and enhanced data residency options for customers in that geographic region.
• Introducing the AWS Zero Trust Accelerator for Government — The new AWS Zero Trust Accelerator for Government helps public sector organizations implement zero trust security architectures more efficiently, with specialized tools and guidance for compliance requirements.
• Accelerate the transfer of data from an Amazon EBS snapshot to a new EBS volume — AWS has announced the general availability of Amazon EBS Provisioned Rate for Volume Initialization, a new feature that allows users to accelerate data transfer from EBS snapshots to new EBS volumes at specified rates between 100 MiB/s and 300 MiB/s.

Instance announcements

AWS expanded instance availability for an array of instance types across additional Regions.

• Amazon EC2 C8gd, M8gd, and R8gd instances are now available in AWS Region Europe (Frankfurt) — Amazon EC2 C8gd, M8gd, and R8gd instances are now available in the AWS Europe (Frankfurt) Region, bringing Graviton-powered compute instances with local NVMe-based SSD storage to more customers.
• Amazon EC2 R7g instances are now available in additional AWS Regions — Amazon EC2 R7g memory-optimized instances powered by AWS Graviton3 processors are now available in additional AWS Regions, expanding deployment options for memory-intensive workloads.
• Amazon EC2 R7g instances are now available in AWS GovCloud (US-East) — Amazon EC2 R7g instances are now available in AWS GovCloud (US-East), bringing high-performance, memory-optimized compute options to government and regulated workloads.
• Amazon EC2 X2idn instances now available in AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region — Amazon EC2 X2idn memory-optimized instances with Intel Xeon Scalable processors are now available in the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region, supporting in-memory databases and high-performance computing workloads.
• Amazon EC2 P5en instances are now available in the AWS US West (N. California) Region — Amazon EC2 P5en instances, designed for high-performance ML training and generative AI inferencing, are now available in the AWS US West (N. California) Region.

Additional updates

• AWS Systems Manager adds customization options for onboarding configuration — AWS Systems Manager now offers expanded customization options for onboarding configuration, giving administrators more flexibility when setting up and managing their resources.
• Amazon MSK enables seamless certificate renewals on MSK Provisioned clusters — Amazon MSK enables seamless certificate renewals on MSK Provisioned clusters, simplifying security management for Apache Kafka environments.
• AWS Resource Explorer supports 41 new resource types — AWS Resource Explorer has expanded to support 41 new resource types, making it easier to discover and visualize more AWS resources across your accounts.
• Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus now available in the AWS Canada (Central) Region — Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus is now available in the AWS Canada (Central) Region, offering container monitoring capabilities to more customers in North America.
• AWS End User Messaging is now available in Mexico (Central) — AWS End User Messaging is now available in Mexico (Central), allowing businesses to send SMS, voice, and email messages to customers in the geographic region.
• Amazon WorkSpaces is now available in AWS Europe (Paris) Region Amazon WorkSpaces, AWS’s managed desktop virtualization service, is now available in AWS Europe (Paris) Region, expanding virtual desktop infrastructure options for European customers.

Upcoming events

We are in the middle of AWS Summit season! AWS Summits run throughout the summer in cities all around the world. Be sure to check the calendar to find out when a AWS Summit is happening near you. Here are the remaining Summits for May, 2025.

• Seoul, South Korea – May 14th – 15th
• Dubai, United Arab Emirates – May 21st, 2025
• Tel Aviv, Israel – May 28th, 2025
• Singapore – May 29th, 2025

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