AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

I've been tracking AWS for a long time, with a specific emphasis on pricing. "What happens if AWS hikes prices" has always been something of a boogeyman, trotted out as a hypothetical to urge folks to avoid taking dependencies on a given provider.

Over the weekend - on a Saturday, no less - that hypothetical became real.

AWS has quietly raised prices on its EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML by approximately 15 percent. The p5e.48xlarge instance – eight NVIDIA H200 accelerators in a trenchcoat – jumped from $34.61 to $39.80 per hour across most regions, while the p5en.48xlarge climbed from $36.18 to $41.61. Customers in US West (N. California) face steeper hikes, with p5e rates rising from $43.26 to $49.75. The change had been telegraphed: AWS's pricing page noted (and bizarrely, still does) that "current prices are scheduled to be updated in January, 2026 ...