The CKS autoscaler scales a Node Pool up only when adding another Node of that pool’s instance type would make a pending Pod schedulable. If a Pod requests more resources than a single Node of that instance type provides (for example, 160 CPU cores when the instance has 128 allocatable), the autoscaler does not scale up because the new Node still would not fit the Pod. Either lower the Pod’s request, or add a Node Pool with a larger instance type.
For full details, see Node Pool autoscaling.
Workload Scheduling
What is the autoscaler behavior when Pods are pending?
Last modified on June 18, 2026