By default, AWS users do not have access to F1 instances. You need to request and be granted access to F1 instances before you can start using these instance.
These steps were partially taken from here.
- Open the Service Limit Increase form
- Submit a Service Limit Increase for EC2 Instances
- Select the region where you want to access F1 instances: US East (N.Virginia), US West (Oregon) or EU (Ireland)
- Select the instance type, either f1.2xlarge or f1.16xlarge
- Set the New limit value to 1 or more
- Fill the rest of the form as appropriate and click Submit
Requests are typically processed by AWS in 24 to 48 hours.