The IBM Z17 is the new mainframe announced by the blue giant. Totally encrypted, it is equipped with an IBM Telum II processor and has been specially designed to offer more than 250 cases of use of AIincluding agents of the generative.
Mainframes may seem outdated at an era where servers based on microcomputers, web servers and personal computers networks have been imposed, but according to reports, in 2024 they were still used by 71 % of Fortune 500 companies and the segment had an estimated value of 5.3 billion dollars.
IBM Z17 can process 450 billion inference operations per daywith an increase in the 50% yield with respect to its predecessor, the IBM Z16 launched in 2022 that worked with the company’s original tellum processor. The system is designed to completely integrate with other hardware, software and open source tools.
Tina Tarquinio, Vice President of Management and Design of IBM Z products, explains that this update for its mainframes has been in process for five years, long before the current frenzy of the AI that began with the launch of the OpenAi chatpt. IBM says he dedicated more than 2,000 hours of research to collect the opinion of more than 100 clients during the development of Z17. It seems that the company was right with the approach Seeing the direction that the market has taken towards artificial intelligence.
The Z17 is configured to adapt to the evolution of the AI market, said Tarquinio. The Mainframe will admit 48 CHIPS ACCELERATORS OF IA IBM Spyre in its launch and the plan is to increase that figure to 96 in 12 months. «We have designed this versatility for AI on purpose. Thus, as new models are introduced, we make sure to have maneuver margin for increasingly large models, which may need more local memory to communicate with each other. We have incorporated it because we know that it is the approach that will really change. The new models will go and come »says the executive.
Another of the outstanding aspects of the IBM Mainframe is the greater energy efficiency in front of their predecessors and competitors. “In the chip, we are increasing the acceleration of the AI seven and a half times, but with five and a half times less energy than it would be needed to make, for example, a multiple model in another type of accelerator or platform in the industry,” said Tarquinio.
IBM Z17 will be generally available June 8confirming that the mainframe segment is still alive, although without the enormous presence they had in the 60s and 70s when these central computers were booming with IBM and the “seven dwarfs” (Burroughs, Data Control, General Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA and UNIVAC) at the head of the market.
