The next generation of computing: More compute power at lower cost

In this article, you will read

• when the Open Telekom Cloud will introduce the latest generation of CPUs,
• which technical advantages the CPUs offer
• and which new offerings will result from them.

Christmas is approaching, and the Open Telekom Cloud is opening its big gift box once again. In November, the latest generation of Intel CPUs will be deployed in data centers in Germany, followed by the Netherlands in December. With the sixth generation of Intel Xeon processors (Intel Xeon 6900) and the Granite Rapids architecture, users get additional computing power at no extra cost. The Open Telekom Cloud is introducing these new CPUs as the first European cloud provider to do so.

The latest Xeon® chips are available as c9, m9, and s9 flavors (General Purpose). The c-class is compute-optimized, while the m-class is memory-optimized. Most cloud users rely on the s-class General Purpose flavors. The new 9-series delivers significant performance gains compared to earlier Intel generations in the Open Telekom Cloud (the 3-series and 4-series).

The Geekbench 6 benchmark highlights the performance gains of the new c-flavors: the c9 delivers twice the compute power of the c3 and 45% more than the c4. For the m-flavors, the improvement is even more striking. The m9 provides 2.4 times the performance of the m3 and more than 50% more than the m4. These new instances deliver peak compute performance in the cloud.

The increased power makes these flavors ideal for high-performance computing, and the new chip generation is also well suited for classic machine learning and smaller AI models. The c9 family is available in two CPU-to-memory ratios (1:2 and 1:4), allowing users to choose based on whether their workloads require less or more memory. These instances are a strong match for compute-intensive tasks such as CPU-based inference and video streaming, which depend on large instance sizes and consistently high CPU performance. The m9 family, designed with a 1:8 ratio, addresses the needs of memory-intensive applications.

The new 9-series brings several additional benefits, including a substantial 480 MB cache and an impressive memory bandwidth of 614 GB per second, ensuring strong data throughput across all workloads. Both the c9 and m9 families offer advanced networking capabilities, delivering higher overall bandwidth and significantly improved network connectivity (100 Gbit per second). This enables seamless communication between distributed cloud services, containers, and microservices at enterprise scale.

The rollout begins in November in Magdeburg and Biere. Users of compute-optimized and memory-optimized flavors will be the first to access the new chips, followed by deployment in the Netherlands. The introduction of the new s9 flavors will begin in January.

Detailed specifications can be found here:

• Compute-Optimized c9
• Memory-Optimized m9

That’s not all. With the new chips, the maximum size of available flavors also increases. Compute-optimized and memory-optimized flavors are now available with up to 192 vCPUs. The expanded configurations also apply to Dedicated Hosts with up to 376 CPUs (in December) and Bare Metal Servers with up to 384 CPUs (in January 2026).

They don’t. Open Telekom Cloud users can access the new flavors at the same prices as before, with no additional charges. The new generation 9 instances are also available as exclusive three-year reservation packages in the e-shop. These packages offer cost predictability and long-term savings for stable workloads, supporting strategic cloud planning. In many cases, migrating to a 9-series instance can deliver cost advantages of more than 50%.

Last but not least, the Open Telekom Cloud also benefits from the new chips. They are significantly more energy-efficient than previous generations. At the same time, the new CPUs can be packed at twice the density in data centers, allowing existing facility space to be used more efficiently and delivering more compute power per square meter.