Amazon EC2 Enables Nested Virtualization on Virtual Instances for Enhanced Testing and Simulation

AWS added support for nested virtualization on virtualized EC2 instances, broadening use cases previously limited to bare metal instances.

By Diana Quinn · Editorial pseudonym · 2026-02-16 · 1 min read

AI-ASSISTED REPORTING · RETROSPECTIVE ARCHIVE

Retrospective edition: 2026-02-16. Source published: 2026-02-16. Added to this archive: 2026-11-03. This briefing was prepared later from the linked announcement; it was not published on this website on the historical edition date.

Customers can now run nested virtual machines inside virtual EC2 instances by deploying hypervisors like KVM or Hyper-V. This capability was formerly restricted to bare metal instances and expands virtualization flexibility on the AWS cloud.

Use cases include running mobile application emulators, automotive hardware simulations, and Windows Subsystem for Linux on Windows workstations, facilitating complex development and testing scenarios directly within virtualized EC2 environments for improved efficiency.

Source & further reading

Amazon EC2 supports nested virtualization on virtual Amazon EC2 instances ↗

Source published 2026-02-16. This report was prepared with AI assistance from the linked primary-source material. Claims and limitations should be checked against the original announcement or research.