IBM has unveiled Power11, an upgrade to its Power series of servers and chips, offering design improvements that it claims streamline operations for the AI era. Among the key improvements: Power11 is the first Power server to support the IBM Spyre Accelerator, IBM’s system-on-a-chip designed for AI-intensive inference workloads.
This is the first major upgrade to the Power series since the release of Power10 in 2020, which at the time the company claimed was 20 times faster at AI processing than the previous Power chip.
The Power11 is geared for hybrid deployment on-premises or in the cloud, with improved hardware and semiconductor performance. Power11 provides up to 55% better core performance compared with Power9. It has 45% more capacity, with higher core counts, in entry and mid-range systems, than Power10. IBM claims this will greatly support automation in a number of use cases.
Central to IBM’s pitch with the Power11 is its enhanced ability to drive today’s data-heavy AI workloads. This new Power series provides on-chip acceleration for AI inferencing. For context, IBM is not positioning this chip as competing with NVIDIA semiconductors designed for the heaviest AI training workloads. Rather IBM is targeting the lighter—but still data intensive—inference market, comprised of processors that serve up answers from large language models.
To scale up to supporting critical AI workloads, Power11 hardware will interoperate with the IBM Spyre Accelerator, which can handle generative AI and deep learning tasks. The Spyre is forecast to be available by Q4 2025.
To enhance application development, IBM’s Watsonx Code Assistant for i will support developers working to extend RPG (Report Program Generator) applications. The watsonx platform and its open data lakehouse will be available on Power11 by Q4 2025.
IBM claims the new Power series will suffer less than 30 minutes of downtime annually, which equates to 99.9999% uptime. To maintain efficiency, Power11 won’t require scheduled downtime for application upgrades. Supporting this level of reliability, the Power series uses generative AI to find operational risks and help with patch management. IBM’s global infrastructure support system provides AI-driven diagnostics to proactively keep tabs on system health.
The Power11’s Cyber Vault feature can detect a ransomware threat in under one minute, according to IBM. Cyber Vault uses the NIST cybersecurity guidelines to detect and automatically respond to any threats from the perimeter. For data protection, Cyber Vault includes immutable data snapshots captured and tested on a schedule determined by the customer. IBM touts Cyber Vault as offering quantum-safe cryptography to guard against harvest-now, decrypt-later attacks.
In a clear bid to expand market share, Power11 general availability will simultaneously include high-end, mid-range, and entry servers. The Power11 servers will be available on July 25.
“With Power11, clients can accelerate into the AI era with innovations tailored to their most pressing business needs,” said Tom McPherson, GM, Power Systems at IBM. “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.”
