An approach for providing low-latency and fast response times required by virtual machine (VM) telecommunication (telco) workloads is disclosed. In one embodiment, a kernel scheduler identifies hypervisor system contexts that are outside of traditional virtual central processing unit (CPU) contexts and servicing telco workloads. The scheduler grants each such context exclusive affinity to a respective physical CPU, up to a configurable maximum number of such grants. The scheduler also increases the CPU reservations in a system resource pool for the hypervisor by one CPU, indicating that there is one fewer physical CPU on which VMs may be placed or moved. The exclusive affinities and CPU reservations may be dynamically adjusted as, e.g., new latency-sensitive VMs are powered on with virtual CPUs that need to be granted exclusive affinity to physical CPUs or contexts no longer relevant to telco workloads are demoted to not have exclusive affinity to physical CPUs.