AWS asks engineers to shut down idle servers as AI demand strains capacity

Amazon Web Services has internally directed its engineers to shut down unused EC2 instances in response to resource pressure caused by accelerating demand for AI computing. Company data reveals that approximately 65% of EC2 instances have average CPU utilization below 20% over 30-day periods. AWS has responded by adding 3.8 gigawatts of electrical capacity over the past year, enough to supply 2.8 million households. Resource pressures stem primarily from demand for GPU-equipped cloud instances, critical infrastructure for training and running large language models, making utilization optimization an urgent priority.