Retirement: HC-series Azure Virtual Machines will be retired on May 31, 2027

On May 31, 2027, Microsoft Azure will retire the following HC-series virtual machine (VMs) sizes: Standard_HC44rs, Standard_HC44-16rs, and Standard_HC44-32rs.

To ensure continuity and improved performance, we recommend transitioning to one of the current‑generation Azure HPC VM families:

• Azure HBv5‑series VMs — the newest in the HB‑series — which offer significantly higher performance and better price‑performance than HBv4 across most compute‑ and memory‑intensive workloads.

• Azure HX‑series VMs — optimized for high‑memory HPC workloads, providing twice the memory capacity of HBv4 and ideal for simulations, large models, and memory‑bound applications.

How does the retirement of HC-series virtual machines affect me?

From now until May 31, 2027, you can continue to use HC-series VMs. After May 31, 2027, any remaining HC-series virtual machines (VMs) subscriptions will be set to a deallocated state. They’ll stop working and no longer incur billing charges. HC-series will be no longer under SLA or have support included. Additionally, 1-year and 3-year RI purchases will end April 2, 2026.

Required action:

You need to resize or deallocate your HC-series VMs. We recommend migrating these workloads from the original HC-series VMs to newer HPC-optimized SKUs such as HBv5, HBv4, HX, and HBv3-series virtual machines (or an alternative that meets your workload requirements).