IBM boosts AI mainframe capabilities with Z17

IBM has unveiled its latest mainframe pc, the Z17, which it claims has redefined synthetic intelligence (AI) at scale. The following era of the corporate’s mainframe system is powered by an IBM Telum II processor, and has been optimised, in keeping with IBM, to run workloads resembling generative and agentic AI.

When it comes to AI, IBM mentioned the Z17 allows enterprises to run analytics on all of their transactions in actual time, and has the power to course of 50% extra AI inference operations per day than its predecessor, the Z16. 

The Z17 AI inferencing capabilities are powered by what IBM calls “a second-generation on-chip AI accelerator” that it mentioned has been constructed into the IBM Telum II processor.

The AI accelerator gives elevated frequency, compute capability, plus a 40% bigger cache, which IBM mentioned allows it to run greater than 450 billion inferencing operations in a day, with a response time of 1 millisecond. 

The Z17 additionally gives IBM’s Spyre Accelerator, which might be accessible later within the yr. This gives extra AI compute capabilities to enhance the Telum II processor. In line with IBM, the mix of Spyre and Telum II accelerators means the Z17 can help multi-model AI. Spyre provides generative AI capabilities to the Z17, which IBM mentioned allows the mainframe system to run giant language fashions (LLMs) and AI assistants securely.

Discussing how this may assist enterprises that use the Z17, Ric Lewis, senior vice-president of infrastructure for IBM, mentioned: “The trade is shortly studying that AI will solely be as priceless because the infrastructure it runs on. Only one% of the enterprise information is a part of giant language fashions. With Z17, companies can put their untapped enterprise information to work for AI in a safe, cost-effective means.”

IBM has additionally added AIops capabilities as a part of the Z17 by together with IBM Watsonx Code Assistant for Z and IBM Watsonx Assistant for Z. IBM mentioned Watsonx Assistant for Z might be built-in with Z Operations Unite to offer AI chat-based incident detection and determination for the primary time utilizing dwell methods information.

Together with the Z17, the corporate introduced IBM Z Operations Unite, which brings collectively operational information from a number of sources throughout IBM Z, in OpenTelemetry format, which it mentioned streamlines IT operations with AI.

In line with IBM, the IT instrument helps admins detect anomalies faster, enabling them to isolate the affect of potential incidents and scale back the decision time from hours to minutes. IBM Z Operations Unite gives what IBM claims is “clever correlation of occasions from a number of sources”. It additionally works with Watsonx Assistant for Z, which may present professional recommendation and allow the IT operations crew to take actions primarily based on this steerage.

IBM has additionally taken steps to assist its prospects deploy quantum secure encryption. IBM chief product officer Tina Tarquinio mentioned: “We’ve got quantum secure encryption on our system and we are actually introducing new instruments to assist our purchasers get on this quantum secure journey faster.”

She described the deployment of quantum secure know-how as “a heavy raise” involving switching encryption algorithms.