Google Cloud's custom CPU-based C4A virtual machines (VMs) are now generally available. The VMs are the first series based on Google's Arm-based Axion CPUs. Axion is based on Arm’s Neoverse V2 designs and is built on the standard Armv9 architecture and instruction set.
C4A VMs are now available via on-demand, Spot VMs, reservations, Committed Use Discounts (CUDs) in one- and three-year terms, and FlexCUDs from the us-central1 (Iowa), us-east4 (Virginia), us-east1 (SC), eu-west1 (Belgium), eu-west4 (Netherlands), eu-west3 (Frankfurt), and asia-southeast1 (Singapore) regions, with additional regions expected to come soon. Early adopters include Daily Motion, Paramount Streaming, and Spotify among others.
Jignesh Dhruv, VP of video engineering at Paramount Streaming said: "Paramount+ is committed to delivering the highest quality viewing experiences across all our platforms. Google Cloud's Axion and C4A VMs provide the performance and efficiency we need to leverage the latest advancements in video encoding technology. With C4A VMs, we're able to utilize the higher efficiency of the new Arm processors to achieve 33 percent faster encode times, compared to older VMs."
