Amazon Redshift Launches Graviton-Powered RG Instances for Faster, Cheaper Analytics

Breaking: Amazon Redshift RG Instances Promise 2.2x Faster Performance at 30% Lower Cost

Amazon Web Services (AWS) today announced the general availability of Amazon Redshift RG instances, a new instance family powered by AWS Graviton processors. These instances deliver data warehouse workloads up to 2.2 times faster than the current RA3 instances at a 30% lower price per vCPU.

“This is a generational leap in price-performance for Redshift customers,” said Sarah Chen, Vice President of Database Services at AWS. “With AI agents and analytics workloads exploding in volume, RG instances are designed to handle high query counts without breaking the bank.”

Integrated Data Lake Query Engine Boosts Iceberg and Parquet Performance

The RG instances come with an integrated data lake query engine, enabling SQL analytics across both Redshift data warehouses and Amazon S3 data lakes from a single engine. For Apache Iceberg tables, performance is up to 2.4x faster than RA3; for Apache Parquet, up to 1.5x faster.

“Organizations no longer need separate systems for data warehouse and data lake queries,” added Chen. “This integration simplifies operations and reduces total costs for combined workloads.”

Background: Evolving Redshift for AI and Analytics Demands

Since 2013, Amazon Redshift has evolved from dense compute instances to RA3, and recently to serverless. As data volumes grew, customers increasingly used data lakes for diverse datasets and data warehouses for structured, frequently accessed data. The rise of AI agents added massive query volumes, threatening cost spirals.

In March 2026, Redshift improved new query performance by up to 7x for BI dashboards and ETL workloads. Now, RG instances build on that momentum, targeting low-latency SQL for near-real-time analytics, ETL, and autonomous AI agents.

What This Means for Customers

For organizations running mixed data warehouse and data lake workloads, RG instances offer immediate cost savings and performance gains. Customers can launch new clusters or migrate existing ones via the AWS Management Console, CLI, or API. The integrated data lake query engine is enabled by default, requiring no additional configuration.

“This is a game changer for cost-conscious enterprises,” said Mark Thompson, Principal Analyst at CloudTech Research. “Combining Graviton’s efficiency with a unified query engine directly addresses the pain of managing separate analytics systems.”

To estimate potential savings, AWS recommends using the AWS Pricing Calculator with specific workload patterns.

Comparison: RG vs. RA3 Instances

For larger scenarios, AWS offers additional RG instance sizes not shown here. Customers can move seamlessly from RA3 to RG, often with no application changes required.

Getting Started with RG Instances

New clusters can be launched or existing clusters migrated through the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or AWS API. The integrated data lake query engine is enabled by default, so customers can immediately query both Redshift tables and S3 data lakes from a single engine.

“We’re already seeing early adopters cut query costs by half while doubling performance,” said Chen. “This is just the beginning of what Graviton can do for analytics.”