IBM on Tuesday introduced the latest model of its well-known mainframe: the IBM z17.

Powered by the newest IBM Telum II processor, IBM z17 culminates 5 years of analysis and improvement. It options AI capabilities throughout {hardware}, software program, and programs operations.

“IBM Z is constructed to redefine AI at scale,” IBM mentioned within the press launch.

Whereas mainframes are sometimes seen as a throwback to older eras of computing, they’re nonetheless utilized by massive firms to course of huge quantities of information. Many industries worldwide — together with banking, insurance coverage, retail, and telecommunications — nonetheless use IBM mainframes at present.

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New IBM mainframe places AI first

The latest IBM mainframe was explicitly designed to raised help AI options.

Based on IBM, the z17 can course of 50% extra AI inference operations per day than the z16. The tech large says the z17 has over 250 use circumstances, together with managing chatbots and mitigating mortgage danger.

A few of the foremost AI instruments provided by the z17 processor are:

• Extra inferencing capabilities: The z17 has elevated frequency, larger compute capability, and a 40% development in cache. This permits greater than 450 billion inferencing operations in a day and a one-millisecond response time.
• Accelerated computing: When it turns into obtainable within the final quarter of 2025, the IBM Spyre Accelerator will increase the Telum II processor’s computation skills, permitting the mainframe to run generative options corresponding to assistants.
• Higher consumer expertise: z17 incorporates AI assistants and AI brokers, corresponding to IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z and IBM watsonx Assistant for Z, to enhance the consumer expertise of IT groups and builders. Watsonx Assistant for Z can even be built-in with Z Operations Unite, offering stay programs information for AI chat-based incident detection and determination.

“The business is rapidly studying that AI will solely be as useful because the infrastructure it runs on,” mentioned Ross Mauri, common supervisor of IBM Z and LinuxONE. “With z17, we’re bringing AI to the core of the enterprise with the software program, processing energy, and storage to make AI operational rapidly. Moreover, organizations can put their huge, untapped shops of enterprise information to work with AI in a secured, cost-effective method.”