The new chips and servers mark IBM's first major upgrade to its Power line in five years
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IBM $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 $NVDA, 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.
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