We’re excited to introduce the next evolution in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s (OCI) Ampere Arm-based compute portfolio—A4 Standard instances. Building on the strong foundation of our A1 and A2 generations, AmpereOne® M-powered A4 Standard instances deliver significantly higher performance, greater efficiency, and enhanced capabilities for today’s demanding workloads, including cloud-native applications, high-throughput services, and AI inferencing.
The Journey: From A1 Standard to A4 Standard
Over four years ago, we launched our first Arm-based A1 Standard instances, and since then, more than 1,000 customers worldwide have realized significant performance and efficiency gains. Industry leaders like Red Bull Racing and Uber are at the forefront—using A1 Standard for everything from high-throughput simulations to tier-one production services—and customer momentum continues to accelerate.
Leading this next chapter, A4 Standard instances further advance Oracle’s commitment to delivering optimal flexibility and choice, price-performance, and sustainability for our global customer base.
AmpereOne® M: The Engine Behind A4 Standard
At the core of our new A4 Standard instances is the AmpereOne M processor, Ampere’s latest flagship processor, built for sustainable, power-efficient computing for AI inference and cloud-native applications.
A4 Standard instances offer the following key features, performance characteristics, and pricing:
- Based on the AmpereOne M processor family, with 48 OCPUs (1 OCPU = 2 AmpereOne M cores, 96 cores).
- 20% higher frequency CPU compared to A1 Standard and A2 Standard, delivering stronger performance for compute-intensive workloads such as real-time analytics and data processing.
- 50% more memory channels at 40% higher memory speeds, delivering 2x memory bandwidth compared to A1 Standard and A2 Standard, making it ideal for memory-intensive workloads such as in-memory databases and LLM (Large Language Model) inferencing.
- Flexible configurations through Virtual Machines (FlexVMs) and Bare Metal instances.
- Priced to deliver exceptional value at $0.0138 per OCPU-hr and $0.0027 GB-hr.
| Shape | OCPU | Memory | Storage | Network |
| VM.Standard.A4.Flex | 45 | 700 | Block Storage Only | 100Gbps |
| BM.Standard.A4.48 | 48 | 768 | 1 x 3.84TB Block Storage | 100Gbps |
Delivering Performance Where It Counts
Customers migrating from A2-based VMs can expect up to 35% per-core performance improvement, depending on the workload. The 20% higher core frequency boosts most applications, with notable gains across key workload types, including:
- Compute-intensive workloads: Up to 24% better SPECint and 34% SPECfp, improving CPU-bound tasks like analytics, batch processing, and scientific computing.
- Memory-intensive workloads: 35% higher STREAM Triad throughput, benefiting in-memory databases, caching layers, and HPC workloads.
- Latency-sensitive workloads: Up to 34% improvement in SPECjbb, accelerating JVM services and real-time applications.
- Transaction-heavy workloads: 35% higher LLAMA Transactions per Second (TPS), improving throughput and efficiency for high-concurrency, request-driven, and microservices-based applications.
*SPECrate® and SPECjbb® are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. For more information about SPEC, see www.spec.org
Bare Metal customers migrating from A1 Standard can expect similar performance improvements on A4 Standard, driven by the higher core frequency, larger caches, and superior memory performance.
Customer Success: Powered by OCI Ampere Shapes
OCI customers continue to lead innovation with Ampere-powered workloads:
Oracle Red Bull Racing leverages Ampere instances for running billions of Monte Carlo simulations per race to optimize race strategies. They anticipate another 12% jump in predictive simulation performance with the new A4 Standard.
Martin Galpin, Head of Software Engineering at Red Bull Racing & Red Bull Technology, states: “Through our partnership with Oracle, we’ve been working with Ampere from their first generation compute launch until today, and we continue to enjoy the increased price-performance boost we get with each new gen. Oracle Red Bull Racing needs the most cutting-edge compute to run the best simulations as quickly as possible; and we always like staying on the bleeding edge of computational innovation with Oracle. OCI Ampere instances have always been a really good fit for our predictive simulations, and we expect the new A4 instances to give us another double-digit jump in performance.”
Uber now runs over 20% of its total OCI capacity on Ampere, cutting infrastructure costs and reducing power consumption by 30%. Uber’s production trip-server workloads are running on Ampere instances, boosted by the enhanced price-performance and a reduced carbon footprint offered by the A4 shapes.
Kamran Zargahi, Vice President of Engineering at Uber, explains: “Our partnership has been very beneficial in terms of efficiency and modernization of our fleet. We especially appreciate the profile of the new A4 designs. We’re excited to begin adopting them.”
Partners like VentureSoft are developing Small Language Model (SLM) solutions on Ampere AIO software, with A1 Standard workloads seamlessly migrating to A4 Standard to leverage higher core counts and memory bandwidth for AI. As AI-powered applications surge, low-cost LLM inference is essential. The new A4 Standard platform, paired with optimized OCI AI Blueprints libraries, improves key metrics such as Time-To-First-Token (TTFT) and Tokens-Per-Second (TPS) for small- and mid-sized models.
Santhosh Sampige, Managing Director and Chief Revenue Officer, VentureSoft shares: “We are pushing the forefront of enterprise-grade SLM with leading price-performance on SLMs for industries including Financial and Healthcare sectors. OCI delivers an excellent platform for these solutions. We’re highly focused on OCI’s current A1 instances and are excited to start adopting the new A4 instances with lead customers. OCI and Ampere’s AI solutions have enabled the performance needed, allowing us to focus on our customers’ needs.”
Ecosystem and Global Reach
The rapidly growing Arm64 software ecosystem ensures seamless integration with Java, Oracle Linux, and a wide range of modern application frameworks. Today, over 110+ OCI services run in production on Ampere-based instances. Join the over 1,000 customers leveraging Ampere Arm-based compute on OCI today.
Join the Next Generation of Cloud Innovation
The introduction of A4 Standard marks a significant step forward in Oracle’s Arm journey—unlocking new possibilities for performance-hungry applications, AI/LLM workloads, and sustainable computing. Whether you are running in-memory databases, large-scale simulations, or the latest enterprise AI, the A4 Standard instance is built to meet today’s—and tomorrow’s—needs.
Ready to experience next-level cloud performance? Learn more about Ampere and OCI’s offerings here. Read about Uber’s multi-year journey with OCI and Ampere here. Get started today with OCI Ampere A4 Standard.