compute instance
compound.compound. a single virtual computer that runs on a larger server in the cloud. You can rent one to run your own software or websites without buying physical hardware.
compound. a virtual server resource provided by a cloud computing platform, representing a discrete slice of a physical host's processing power, memory, and storage. It functions as an independent virtual machine that can be launched, scaled, or terminated on demand.
I launched a new compute instance to host my website.
The developer configured a high-memory compute instance to handle the heavy data processing required for the new application.
By distributing the workload across multiple compute instances, the architecture ensures high availability and prevents a single point of failure during peak traffic periods.
A compound formed from the verb compute, derived from the Latin computare, and instance, from the Latin instantia. In this context, the latter term follows the convention of object-oriented programming, where it denotes a concrete occurrence of an abstract template.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Commonly used in cloud computing contexts (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) to refer to a virtual machine.
Last updated July 22, 2026