IBM Unveils Power11 Chips and Servers: Boosting AI Capabilities and Energy Efficiency

IBM boasts new Power11 chips are stingy on power usage

More efficient cores plus an optional energy saver mode in Big Blue's latest CPUs In case you'd forgotten, IBM is still blazing its own trail with regard to silicon. And in terms of speeds and feeds, Big Blue's latest crop of Power chips boasts up to 55 percent faster cores than its Power9 chips. As impressive as that Power11 stat might sound, remember that Power9 made its debut in 2017. That, you may recall, was the generation of CPUs that powered the Department of Energy's Summit and Sierra supercomputers. However, these chips aren't necessarily aimed at supercomputers, and this is reflected in core count across the lineup. While AMD and Intel are pushing core counts to 192 or more, IBM's Power11 tops out at 30 cores per socket. From what we gather, this is achieved using two 15-core dies that share a package, as was the case with Power10. Having said that, you might be fooled into believing it has a lot more cores if you were to run on one of these systems. That's because much like past Power processors, each chip supports up to 8-way simultaneous multithreading. That means that the 30-core socket could have as many as 240 threads. Intel and AMD's chips, meanwhile, offer at most two threads per core. While Power11 doesn't appear to offer any more cores per socket than Power10, Big Blue says those cores are substantially more efficient. With the new chips, IBM is introducing the concept of resource groups, a firmware feature that aims to maximize utilization and increase performance without driving up energy consumption. The chips also feature an energy-saving mode that trades a little bit of performance for a 28 percent improvement in efficiency. Taken together, IBM's Power11 claims twice the performance per watt of comparable x86 systems. Alongside this generation's improved power efficiency, IBM continues to tout the Power lineup's resiliency. If its claims are to be believed, its latest crop of Power systems will deliver 99.9999 percent uptime and require zero-downtime for system maintenance. Some of this resiliency is achieved through architectural decisions made in silicon. For example, while a Power11 system might be equipped with a 16-core chip, not all of those cores are necessarily accessible to the user. In the case of IBM's E1180 node, four cores -- one per socket -- are held as reserve as a sort of hot-spare on the off chance one of the active cores acts up. For more common operations, the system is designed to be serviced or upgraded while in operation. The systems feature hot-pluggable fans, power supplies, and I/O components, which can be swapped out during operation. Of course this being 2025, we can't talk about new silicon without touching on AI, and it seems neither can IBM. While details are still rather thin, the company's Power11 processors feature on-chip AI accelerators capable of running large and small language models. We've asked IBM for a bit more detail on these integrated accelerators, but if we had to guess, they're probably similar to the ones baked into its z17 CPUs used in its mainframe products. IBM also plans to offer systems equipped with its Spyre AI inference accelerator beginning later this year. Announced last year, the 75-watt add-in card boasts 128GB of LPDDR5 memory, good for 200GB/s of bandwidth, along with 300 TOPS of what we assume is FP16 performance. That puts it in a similar power and performance class as Nvidia's L4, albeit with more than 5x the memory capacity. IBM's Power11 will be offered in at least six SKUs at launch. Here's a quick rundown of each: At the top of the stack is IBM's E1180, and stack is definitely the right word for these systems. The machine can be had in either a single-node or four-node cluster config. Each node features four Power11 sockets, each with 10, 12, or 16 cores, for a max of 64 cores and 512 threads per system. Though again, from what we understand, four of those cores are going to be on backup duty. Connected to all that compute are 64 DDIMM slots that when fully populated top out at 16TB of DDR5 capacity. Moving further down the stack is IBM's E1150. On the surface, the system shares a lot in common with its larger sibling. Both the E1180 and E1150 feature 64 DDIMM memory slots with support for 16TB of DDR5, and four Power11 sockets. The primary difference lies in how those sockets are configured. Rather than maxing out at 16 cores per socket, the E1150 can be had with 16, 24, or 30 core modules for a max of 120 cores per system. Alongside its four socket systems, Power11 is also available in four dual-socket configurations. The S1124 is a 4U rack system that can be had with up to 8TB of memory, between 32 and 60 Power11 cores, and is equipped with 24 U.2 drive bays. The smaller 2U S1122, meanwhile, starts at eight cores but can be configured with up to 60. Those cores are fed by up to 4TB of memory and 24 U.2 drives -- though we only count 16 on the front of the system. It appears IBM will also offer cost-reduced versions of its two socket systems with the L1122 and L1124. These systems will be limited to running Linux, which isn't necessarily a major loss if you weren't planning to use IBM's particular flavor of Unix called AIX. Power11-based systems will be available starting July 25, both on-prem and in IBM Cloud. ®

IBM rolls out new chips and servers, aims for simplified AI

SAN FRANCISCO, July 8 (Reuters) - International Business Machines (IBM.N), opens new tab on Tuesday announced a new line of data center chips and servers that it says will be more power-efficient than rivals and will simplify the process of rolling out artificial intelligence in business operations. IBM introduced its new Power11 chips on Tuesday, marking its first major update to its "Power" line of chips since 2020. These chips have traditionally vied against offerings from Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), opens new tab in data centers, particularly in specialized sectors such as financial services, manufacturing and healthcare. Like Nvidia's AI servers, IBM's Power systems are an integrated package of chips and software. Tom McPherson, general manager of Power systems at IBM, said the Armonk, New York-based company used that tight coupling to focus on reliability and security. The Power11 systems, available from July 25, will not need any planned downtime for software updates, and their unplanned downtime each year averages just over 30 seconds. They are also designed to detect and respond within a minute to a ransomware attack - where hackers encrypt data and then try to extract a ransom in exchange for the keys, IBM said. In the fourth quarter of this year, IBM plans to integrate Power11 with Spyre, its AI chip introduced last year. McPherson said IBM does not aim to compete with Nvidia in helping create and train AI systems, but is instead focused on simplifying AI deployment for inference, the process of putting an AI system to work in speeding up a business task. "We can integrate AI capabilities seamlessly into this for inference acceleration and help their business process improvements," McPherson said in an interview last week referring to work with early customers. "It's not going to have all the horsepower for training or anything, but it's going to have really good inferencing capabilities that are simple to integrate." Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Himani Sarkar Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

IBM introduces Power11 servers with boosts in uptime, security, and energy efficiency

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. What just happened? IBM has introduced a new version of its Power server built with a redesigned processor, updated hardware architecture, and an enhanced virtualization software stack. The end result, dubbed Power11, is said to be the most resilient server in IBM Power platform history with an uptime rating of 99.9999 percent. To achieve that level of uptime, IBM has implemented advanced technologies like automated workload movement and autonomous patching that enable planned system maintenance to take place without critical applications needing to go offline. Paired with IBM Power Cyber Vault, customers will enjoy a system that's incredibly resilient to cyber threats. According to IBM, Power Cyber Vault protects against threats like encryption and data corruption with proactive immutable snapshots that are automatically captured, stored, and tested on a pre-defined schedule. Built-in quantum-safe cryptography, meanwhile, protects servers from firmware integrity and harvest-now, decrypt-later attacks. With Power Cyber Vault, IBM claims it can detect a ransomware threat in less than one minute. This rapid response is especially critical in banking, retail, healthcare, and government spaces where every second matters. Unsurprisingly, Power11 is built with AI in mind. The new server features built-in, on-chip acceleration that can scale to support mission-critical workloads using IBM Spyre Accelerator. The company also plans to make watsonx.data available on Power11 by the end of the year for even greater flexibility and productivity. Elsewhere, IBM claims Power11 affords twice the performance per watt compared to a similarly equipped x86 server. Efficiency climbs an additional 28 percent when running in the new Energy Efficient Mode versus Maximum Performance Mode. Power11 is said to offer up to 55 percent better core performance versus Power9, and has up to 45 percent more capacity and higher core counts across entry and mid-range systems versus Power10. IBM's new Power11 server launches on July 25, and will be available in a variety of physical and virtual configurations spanning high-end, mid-range, and entry level. The Spyre Accelerator will be available to customers sometime in Q4 2025, we're told.

IBM unveils first new Power servers for years to boost AI and security

Quantum-safe cryptography prepares against future attacks IBM has unveiled its new Power11 servers - next-generation hardware designed to support artificial intelligence, hybrid cloud and automation applications with boosted performance and enhanced security. The company says the Power11 servers now have an ultra-high uptime rate of 99.9999%, noting that autonomous patching, live updates and rolling upgrades ensure zero planned downtime throughout their lifecycles. Power11 servers are also futureproofed against evolving cyberattacks with built-in quantum-safe cryptography and less than one-minute guaranteed ransomware threat detection. Speaking about the "mission-critical, data-intensive workloads" that IBM Power servers support across banking, healthcare, retail and government, the company revealed high-end, mid-range and entry-level servers to cater to a variety of workloads, all available from launch. "Power11 will also be the first IBM Power server to support the IBM Spyre Accelerator, IBM's system-on-a-chip available Q4 2025 that is purpose-built for today's AI-intensive inference workloads," the company added. Besides futureproofing against emerging technologies, Power11 servers also represent a huge leap forward from previous generations, including 55% better core performance than Power9, up to 45% more capacity in entry/mid-range models compared with Power10 and 2x performance per watt compared with comparable x86 servers. IBM also noted Energy Efficient Mode could improve server efficiency further, by up to 28%, when peak performance isn't required. "We are taking advantage of the full IBM stack to deliver hybrid cloud, AI, and automation capabilities while building on our decades-long reputation as a trustworthy hybrid infrastructure for essential workloads," Tom McPherson, General Manager for Power Systems at IBM, explained. Although Power11 servers are set for general availability later this month (July 25, 2025), the IBM Spyre Accelerator won't be added until a later date likely in the final three months of 2025.

IBM unveils Power 11 chips and servers for streamlined AI

IBM just announced new Power11 chips and servers, marking the first major upgrade to its Power line since 2020. The company says the updated systems are designed to help businesses integrate AI into their operations more efficiently while maintaining high reliability. The Power11 platform includes changes to its processor, hardware design, and virtualization software. According to IBM, the servers will have 99.9999% uptime -- equating to less than 30 seconds of unplanned downtime per year -- and won't require planned downtime for software updates. They're also built to detect ransomware attacks in under a minute with a feature called Power Cyber Vault. The launch includes high-end, mid-range, and entry-level servers, as well as IBM Power Virtual Server in IBM Cloud, giving businesses options to run workloads on-premises or in the cloud. Industries such as banking, healthcare, retail, and government have historically used IBM Power systems for data-heavy tasks, and Power11 targets the increasing demand for AI capabilities within those sectors. Later this year, IBM plans to integrate Power11 with its Spyre AI accelerator chip. Unlike Nvidia, which focuses on building hardware for training large AI models, IBM is positioning Power11 to handle AI inference -- running models that have already been trained to streamline business processes. Performance improvements with Power11 include up to 55% better core performance compared to Power9 and up to 45% more capacity in entry and mid-range systems versus Power10. IBM also says the servers are more energy-efficient than comparable x86 systems and include an energy-saving mode to reduce power use. "With just 20 minutes and the help of watsonx Code Assistant for i on Power, I was able to investigate a report, trace the field logic, understand the calculation, and document the issue," Jasmine Kaczmarek, VP of technology at distributor MR Williams, commented in a press release. "What had taken a senior developer six hours the day before, I was able to accomplish 18 times faster." Other features include automated patching and workload movement to reduce downtime during maintenance, along with watsonx Code Assistant for i to speed up software development. IBM's open data lakehouse, watsonx.data, is expected to become available on Power11 by the end of 2025. The Power11 servers will be generally available on July 25, with Spyre integration planned for later this year.

IBM debuts new servers based on custom Power11 processor - SiliconANGLE

IBM Corp. today introduced a new line of servers, the Power11 series, that is based on a custom processor of the same name. The product family will include four machines on launch. IBM will also offer access to the Power11 chip via its public cloud. According to the company, customers can expect up to 55% better core performance than comparable servers powered by Intel Corp. silicon. Power11 is designed to provide 99.9999% availability, which corresponds to under 40 seconds of downtime per year. Maintenance tasks such as patching don't require administrators to take applications offline. When a Power11 server must be shut down to make changes, the onboard software can move the applications that it hosts to another machine and thereby avoid downtime. According to IBM, another benefit of Power11's maintenance software is it automates the patching workflow. Usually, updating an important server requires a significant amount of planning and testing beforehand. Power11 speeds up that process to save time for administrators. IBM will ship the server series with a cybersecurity technology called Cyber Vault. According to the company, it can encrypt customer data with a cryptography algorithm that can't be broken by a quantum computer. Traditional cryptography algorithms can in theory be bypassed using a large-scale quantum machine. Such a machine hasn't yet been developed, but the technology still poses risks. Hackers could steal encrypted data and wait until a quantum computer capable of decrypting it becomes available. Quantum-safe algorithms such as the one used by the Power11 series is designed to mitigate that risk. Cyber Vault also performs other tasks. According to IBM, the technology is capable of detecting ransomware in under a minute. For added measure, it creates immutable copies of customer data that ransomware can't delete or encrypt. Power-efficiency was another priority for IBM while designing the Power11 series. According to the company, a new Energy Efficient setting can cut workloads' energy usage by up to 28%. The new server line is the first in the Power portfolio to support IBM's Spyre Accelerator. Previewed last year, it's an artificial intelligence chip with 25.6 billion transistors that are organized into 32 cores and 14 miles of microscopic wiring. The processor is packaged into a PCIe card that can be plugged into servers to speed up inference workloads. "We are taking advantage of the full IBM stack to deliver hybrid cloud, AI, and automation capabilities while building on our decades-long reputation as a trustworthy hybrid infrastructure for essential workloads," said Tom McPherson, the general manager of IBM's Power Systems group. The four servers in the initial Power11 lineup are headlined by the Power E1180, which takes up an entire data center rack. It can be equipped with up to 256 Power11 cores and 64 terabytes of DDR5 memory. The most affordable machine in the series, the Power S1122, feature a considerably smaller chassis that has room for up to 60 Power11 cores.

IBM unveils new Power11 chips for AI in business

IBM has announced a new line of data center chips and servers, introduced on Tuesday, designed to enhance power efficiency and streamline artificial intelligence integration within business operations. This marks the initial significant update to IBM's "Power" chip line since 2020. These new Power11 chips are specifically engineered for data centers, historically competing with offerings from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. IBM's Power systems, similar to Nvidia's AI servers, constitute an integrated package of both hardware chips and proprietary software. Tom McPherson, general manager of Power systems at IBM, stated that this integrated approach facilitated a focus on system reliability and security. The Power11 systems will be commercially available starting July 25. The Power11 systems are designed for continuous operation, eliminating the need for planned downtime associated with software updates. Unplanned downtime for these systems averages slightly over 30 seconds annually. IBM also detailed that these systems are equipped to detect and respond to ransomware attacks within one minute, a mechanism to counter data encryption attempts by malicious actors seeking ransom. Further integration is planned for the fourth quarter of this year, as IBM intends to combine the Power11 with Spyre, its AI chip introduced in 2023. McPherson clarified IBM's strategic positioning regarding artificial intelligence, indicating that the company does not aim to directly compete with Nvidia in the domain of AI system creation and training. Instead, IBM's focus is on simplifying AI deployment for inference. Inference, in this context, refers to the practical application of an AI system to accelerate various business tasks. "We can integrate AI capabilities seamlessly into this for inference acceleration and help their business process improvements," McPherson affirmed in a recent interview. He added, regarding the Power11's capabilities, "It's not going to have all the horsepower for training or anything, but it's going to have really good inferencing capabilities that are simple to integrate."

IBM rolls out new chips and servers, aims for simplified AI - The Economic Times

These chips have traditionally vied against offerings from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in data centers, particularly in specialised sectors such as financial services, manufacturing and healthcare. Like Nvidia's AI servers, IBM's Power systems are an integrated package of chips and software.International Business Machines on Tuesday announced a new line of data center chips and servers that it says will be more power-efficient than rivals and will simplify the process of rolling out artificial intelligence in business operations. IBM introduced its new Power11 chips on Tuesday, marking its first major update to its "Power" line of chips since 2020. These chips have traditionally vied against offerings from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in data centers, particularly in specialised sectors such as financial services, manufacturing and healthcare. Like Nvidia's AI servers, IBM's Power systems are an integrated package of chips and software. Tom McPherson, general manager of Power systems at IBM, said the Armonk, New York-based company used that tight coupling to focus on reliability and security. The Power11 systems, available from July 25, will not need any planned downtime for software updates, and their unplanned downtime each year averages just over 30 seconds. They are also designed to detect and respond within a minute to a ransomware attack - where hackers encrypt data and then try to extract a ransom in exchange for the keys, IBM said. In the fourth quarter of this year, IBM plans to integrate Power11 with Spyre, its AI chip introduced last year. McPherson said IBM does not aim to compete with Nvidia in helping create and train AI systems, but is instead focused on simplifying AI deployment for inference, the process of putting an AI system to work in speeding up a business task. "We can integrate AI capabilities seamlessly into this for inference acceleration and help their business process improvements," McPherson said in an interview last week referring to work with early customers. "It's not going to have all the horsepower for training or anything, but it's going to have really good inferencing capabilities that are simple to integrate."

IBM Launches Power11 Processor, Says It Will Help Partners Unlock AI For Clients

'It's that combination of server, partners, etc. that delivers on that full-stack promise to ultimately deliver the outcome our clients need,' says Bargav Balakrishnan, IBM Power product management vice president. IBM has launched its Power11 processor, arming its 1,000-plus business partners for the division with the ability for full-stack integration to deliver enhanced productivity, transformation through artificial intelligence and other outcomes for customers. In response to a question by a CRN reporter during a virtual press conference, Bargav Balakrishnan, IBM Power product management vice president, said that the new processor brings new opportunities for solution providers for the Armonk, N.Y.-based tech giant. He used the example of Power11 combining SAP ERP modernization software and consulting from either IBM's own division -- No. 6 on CRN's 2025 Solution Provider 500 -- or the capabilities of solution providers. The new processor enables a 25 percent faster migration to Power Virtual Server on IBM Cloud for SAP Rise. Power has about 10,000 SAP clients on the platform. "It's that combination of server, partners, etc. that delivers on that full-stack promise to ultimately deliver the outcome our clients need," he said. Customers want "to go from the promise of AI to the profits of AI." [RELATED: IBM Sets June Date for AI Agent Era z17 Mainframes] Tom McPherson, IBM Power general manager, added that business partners guide the division's road map and helped shape the capabilities of Power11. "We're always showcasing our integrated value proposition and taking them with us on the journey, if you will, so that they can add value right away at a next-generation system delivery," McPherson said. IBM's top channel goals for 2025 include increasing the overall percentage of company revenue that comes through the channel, according to CRN's 2025 Channel Chiefs. Bo Gebbie, president of Minneapolis-based IBM partner Evolving Systems -- No. 162 on CRN's 2025 Solution Provider 500 -- told CRN in a recent interview that he and his team have been at work figuring out with clients where to apply AI at scale. Customers have also wanted to see concrete figures around return on investment and are less interested in experiments. Evolving Solutions has seen a lot of customer interest around its engineering workshops, design sessions and consulting for how to leverage AI for more automation. "It's a path to that cloud environment from a network side, a security side and automation side, integration side, all the applications around it," he said. Scale-out systems have contributed to "a lot of the growth" Power has seen over the past few years, McPherson said, as have edge use cases. He also said that clients are increasingly seeking hybrid cloud by design instead of by default for data sovereignty flexibility. Hybrid cloud and AI "go together because you really need a good data strategy to gain insights from AI -- and hybrid cloud is a good foundation to drive a good data strategy, he said. Power11 aims to not only give users the division's system stack, but the full IBM stack for AI, automation, hybrid cloud and other scenarios. High-end, midrange and entry servers are all available now, a first for IBM in an effort to simplify adoption. Power11 is also available in the IBM Power Virtual Server (VS) in IBM Cloud for instant availability, Balakrishnan said. Customers should only need five days for on-boarding. IBM will help with provisioning, cloud environment setup and hybrid use case identification, he said. As for customer trends, he has seen them increasingly seek consumption models and as-a-service even on-premises for agility and flexibility. The Power11 launch follows major IBM infrastructure launches in 2025 of the z17 mainframe on June 18 and the LinuxOne 5 server. Power's goal is to be the most resilient server. While Power does see new clients, the road map is focused on incumbent customers so that they can stay on top of technology trends and add new business value, McPherson said during the press conference. The new processor aims to eliminate planned downtime for system maintenance and full update automation. Power11 enables running bigger AI models within workflows, Balakrishnan said. The vendor also integrated quantum-safe protection, the ability to detect ransomware attacks in seconds and other security features. Power customers can also leverage IBM division Red Hat for app and data modernization, opening an opportunity for solution providers in Red Hat's ecosystem, which is separate from IBM's. The processor integrates with the IBM Concert IT operations center powered by AI suite Watsonx. IBM's Spyre accelerator, which becomes available later this year, will help Power11 scale to support complex mission-critical AI workloads. Watsonx.data will also become available for Power later this year for managing and transforming enterprise data for AI at scale. Power is used by tens of thousands of customers worldwide, including banks and payment applications, retailers and manufacturers and Oracle database users, according to the vendor.

IBM Aims To Simplify AI Deployment With New Chips, Servers - IBM (NYSE:IBM)

International Business Machines Corp IBM revealed a new line of AI-focused chips and servers aimed at delivering seamless deployment for businesses. What To Know: IBM's new Power11 servers have been redesigned with enhancements across its processor, hardware architecture and virtualization software stack. The company said its updated servers and chips will meet demand for availability, resiliency performance and scalability. Power11's general availability will include high-end, mid-range and entry servers, as well as IBM Power Virtual Server in IBM Cloud. It will also be the first server to support the IBM Spyre Accelerator, the company's system-on-a-chip that is purpose-built for AI-intensive inference workloads. "IBM Power11 changes the game for enterprise computing. With Power11, clients can accelerate into the AI era with innovations tailored to their most pressing business needs," said Tom McPherson, GM of Power Systems at IBM. Power11 is designed to offer 99.9999% of uptime, zero planned downtime for system maintenance and less than one-minute ransomware threat detection. IBM said Power11 brings AI-ready infrastructure with built-in, on-chip acceleration for inferencing and will be able to scale to support mission-critical AI workloads. Power11 will be generally available on July 25, with the Spyre Accelerator expected to follow in the fourth quarter of 2025. Is IBM A Good Stock To Buy? An investor can make a few decisions when deciding whether a stock is a good buy. In addition to valuation metrics and price action which you can find on Benzinga's quote pages - like IBM's page for example - there are factors like whether or not a company pays a dividend or buys a large portion of its stock each quarter. These are known as capital allocation programs. IBM pays a dividend, which yields 3.12% per year. Feel free to search Benzinga's dividend calendar for the next company that is due to pay a dividend and determine what kind of yield you can earn for holding a share of the company. Buyback programs are obviously different and highly variable. A company can approve a buyback program and purchase shares as it sees fit over the course of time in which the buyback was authorized. Looking through the latest news on IBM will often yield whether or not the company has approved a buyback program recently. Buyback programs usually serve as a support for share prices, serving as a backstop for demand. IBM Price Action: IBM shares were down 0.71% at $290.28 at the time of publication Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro. IBM shares have gained approximately 33% year-to-date, well ahead of the S&P 500, which is up about 6.25% since the start of the year. Read Next: Intel Shares Tumble On Sweeping Tariffs, AI Chip Curbs Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Lures Away Apple AI Chief Ruoming Pang With Tens-Of-Millions Compensation Package Photo: Shutterstock. IBMInternational Business Machines Corp$290.10-0.81%Stock Score Locked: Edge Members Only Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Unlock RankingsEdge RankingsMomentum90.96Growth72.26Quality59.28Value17.26Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewMarket News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

IBM rolls out new chips and servers, aims for simplified AI

SAN FRANCISCO -- International Business Machines on Tuesday announced a new line of data center chips and servers that it says will be more power-efficient than rivals and will simplify the process of rolling out artificial intelligence in business operations. IBM introduced its new Power11 chips on Tuesday, marking its first major update to its "Power" line of chips since 2020. These chips have traditionally vied against offerings from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in data centers, particularly in specialized sectors such as financial services, manufacturing and healthcare. Like Nvidia's AI servers, IBM's Power systems are an integrated package of chips and software. Tom McPherson, general manager of Power systems at IBM, said the Armonk, New York-based company used that tight coupling to focus on reliability and security. The Power11 systems, available from July 25, will not need any planned downtime for software updates, and their unplanned downtime each year averages just over 30 seconds. They are also designed to detect and respond within a minute to a ransomware attack - where hackers encrypt data and then try to extract a ransom in exchange for the keys, IBM said. In the fourth quarter of this year, IBM plans to integrate Power11 with Spyre, its AI chip introduced last year. McPherson said IBM does not aim to compete with Nvidia in helping create and train AI systems, but is instead focused on simplifying AI deployment for inference, the process of putting an AI system to work in speeding up a business task. "We can integrate AI capabilities seamlessly into this for inference acceleration and help their business process improvements," McPherson said in an interview last week referring to work with early customers. "It's not going to have all the horsepower for training or anything, but it's going to have really good inferencing capabilities that are simple to integrate."

IBM rolls out new chips and servers, aims for simplified AI

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -International Business Machines on Tuesday announced a new line of data center chips and servers that it says will be more power-efficient than rivals and will simplify the process of rolling out artificial intelligence in business operations. IBM introduced its new Power11 chips on Tuesday, marking its first major update to its "Power" line of chips since 2020. These chips have traditionally vied against offerings from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in data centers, particularly in specialized sectors such as financial services, manufacturing and healthcare. Like Nvidia's AI servers, IBM's Power systems are an integrated package of chips and software. Tom McPherson, general manager of Power systems at IBM, said the Armonk, New York-based company used that tight coupling to focus on reliability and security. The Power11 systems, available from July 25, will not need any planned downtime for software updates, and their unplanned downtime each year averages just over 30 seconds. They are also designed to detect and respond within a minute to a ransomware attack - where hackers encrypt data and then try to extract a ransom in exchange for the keys, IBM said. In the fourth quarter of this year, IBM plans to integrate Power11 with Spyre, its AI chip introduced last year. McPherson said IBM does not aim to compete with Nvidia in helping create and train AI systems, but is instead focused on simplifying AI deployment for inference, the process of putting an AI system to work in speeding up a business task. "We can integrate AI capabilities seamlessly into this for inference acceleration and help their business process improvements," McPherson said in an interview last week referring to work with early customers. "It's not going to have all the horsepower for training or anything, but it's going to have really good inferencing capabilities that are simple to integrate." (Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Himani Sarkar)