AWS Shuts Down 65% of Inefficient EC2 Instances to Meet AI Compute Demand

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is urging engineers to shut down cloud computing instances that are no longer in use, primarily targeting idle EC2 instances. Data shows that approximately 65% of EC2 instances had an average CPU utilization below 20% over a 30-day measurement period. To improve resource efficiency, AWS has upgraded its Compute Optimizer tool, which now automatically flags virtual machines with peak CPU utilization under 15% and minimal network traffic, based on CPU usage and I/O data collected over a 14-day window. Over the past year, AWS has added 3.8 gigawatts of power capacity—equivalent to the electricity consumption of 2.8 million households. Today, GPU-equipped cloud computing instances have become essential resources for training and running large language models.