Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN),
today announced G2 instances, a new Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
instance designed for applications that require 3D graphics
capabilities. The new instance is backed by a high-performance NVIDIA
GRID™ GPU with 1,536 parallel processing cores, making it ideally suited
for video creation services, 3D visualizations, streaming
graphics-intensive applications and other server-side graphics workloads
requiring massive parallel processing power. With this new instance
type, customers can build high-performance DirectX, OpenGL, CUDA and
OpenCL applications and services without making expensive up-front
capital investments. To get started with G2 instances on Amazon EC2,
visit http://aws.amazon.com/ec2.
“Since we launched Cluster GPU instances two years ago, many customers
have asked for expanded functionality to extend the power of our GPU
instances beyond HPC applications to graphics-intensive workloads such
as video creation services, 3D visualizations and game streaming,” said
Matt Garman, Vice President, Amazon EC2, AWS. “By enabling the use of
DirectX and OpenGL, G2 instances allow developers to cost-effectively
build scalable, fast 3D applications on Amazon EC2 and deliver
high-performance 3D graphics using the cloud.”
“Autodesk is constantly innovating to provide our customers greater
flexibility to access powerful 3D design tools from anywhere, anytime
and from any device without compromising performance,” said Jeff
Kowalski, Chief Technology Officer, Autodesk, a world leader in 3D
design software. “G2 instances for Amazon EC2 will enable us to deliver
high-quality, client-agnostic 3D experiences to customers around the
world without worrying about hardware performance and scalability. We
also believe this will establish a new standard of design experiences
that combine high-performance graphics with the vast compute and storage
resources of AWS.”
“Ubisoft is a leading producer, publisher and distributor of interactive
entertainment products worldwide. For more than 25 years, our games have
been played on a variety of hardware types and configurations,” said
Patrick Allaire, Technology Director, Cloud, Ubisoft. “In the coming
years, games streamed from the cloud are going to grow tremendously in
numbers and in quality, and we believe that AWS is becoming a new and
important gaming platform. G2 instances combine the elasticity and
scalability of Amazon EC2 with the GPU’s massive rendering power,
allowing developers to cost-effectively deliver immersive and engaging
entertainment experiences to a multitude of lower-capability client
devices, such as Kindle Fire, iPad and Android tablets.”
“Animoto is an online video creation service that makes it easy to
generate and share extraordinary videos using photos, video clips, words
and music,” said Siddharth Jain, Vice President, Engineering, Animoto.
“We have been using Amazon EC2 GPU instances since they launched two
years ago to render high-quality video creations via our patented
cinematic artificial intelligence technology. We believe that migrating
to the new G2 instance type will lower our video rendering costs by
roughly 50 percent while giving us more flexibility to dynamically
manage instances in accordance with our growing user activity. With
increasing consumer demand for creating professional-looking user
generated content from any device, G2 instances will become an important
platform in the post-PC world.”
Customers can launch G2 instances using the AWS console, Amazon EC2
command line interface, AWS SDKs and third-party libraries. Initially,
G2 instances are available in the US East (N. Virginia), US West (N.
California), US West (Oregon) and EU (Ireland) regions and will be made
available in other AWS regions in the coming months. G2 instances can be
purchased as On-Demand, Reserved and Spot instances. For more
information on Amazon EC2 and GPU instances, visit http://aws.amazon.com/ec2.
About Amazon Web Services
Launched in 2006, Amazon Web Services, Inc. began exposing key
infrastructure services to businesses in the form of web services -- now
widely known as cloud computing. The ultimate benefit of cloud
computing, and AWS, is the ability to leverage a new business model and
turn capital infrastructure expenses into variable costs. Businesses no
longer need to plan and procure servers and other IT resources weeks or
months in advance. Using AWS, businesses can take advantage of Amazon's
expertise and economies of scale to access resources when their business
needs them, delivering results faster and at a lower cost. Today, Amazon
Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost
infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands
of enterprise, government and startup customers businesses in 190
countries around the world. Amazon Web Services offers over 30 different
services, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon
Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Relational Database
Service (Amazon RDS). AWS services are available to customers from data
center locations in the U.S., Brazil, Europe, Japan, Singapore and
Australia.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle,
opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s
Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most
customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything
they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the
lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of
unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books;
Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home
& Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health &
Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web
Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to
in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end
technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any
type of business. Kindle Paperwhite is the world’s best-selling and most
advanced e-reader. It features new display technology with higher
contrast, the next generation built-in light, a faster processor, the
latest touch technology, and exclusive new features designed from the
ground up for readers. Kindle, the lightest and smallest Kindle,
features improved fonts and faster page turns. The new Kindle Fire HDX
features a stunning exclusive 7” or 8.9” HDX display, a quad-core 2.2
GHz processor, 2x more memory, and 11 hours of battery life, as well as
exclusive new features of Fire OS 3.0 including X-Ray for Music, Second
Screen, Prime Instant Video downloads, and the revolutionary new Mayday
button. The all-new Kindle Fire HD includes an HD display,
high-performance processor and dual speakers at a breakthrough price.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com,
www.amazon.co.uk,
www.amazon.de,
www.amazon.co.jp,
www.amazon.fr,
www.amazon.ca,
www.amazon.cn,
www.amazon.it,
www.amazon.es,
www.amazon.com.br,
www.amazon.in,
and www.amazon.com.mx.
As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include
Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates
otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning
of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly
from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve
risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to
competition, management of growth, new products, services and
technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international
expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment and
data center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements,
acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system
interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments
and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect
Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with
the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual
Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.
Copyright Business Wire 2013