IBM Debuts z17: A Mainframe Built for AI

Ken Metral

08 Apr 2025 — 1 min read

Credit: z17/IBM Corporation

IBM is stepping up its AI game with the release of the z17, the latest generation of its iconic mainframe hardware. Announced this week, the z17 is purpose-built to accelerate artificial intelligence adoption across industries, integrating AI capabilities directly into a system still trusted by 71% of Fortune 500 companies.

Despite being viewed by some as legacy tech, mainframes remain a backbone of enterprise computing. In fact, the global mainframe market was valued at $5.3 billion in 2024, according to Market Research Future. IBM’s new z17 aims to push that relevance even further into the AI era.

At the heart of the z17 is the IBM Telum II processor, capable of executing 450 billion AI inference operations per day — a 50% increase over its predecessor, the z16. It’s designed to support more than 250 AI use cases, ranging from traditional AI agents to cutting-edge generative AI applications.

Tina Tarquinio, VP of product management and design for IBM Z, shared that this upgrade has been five years in the making — well before OpenAI’s ChatGPT sparked the latest AI boom in late 2022. IBM conducted over 2,000 hours of research and gathered feedback from more than 100 customers to guide the system’s development.

To meet this uncertain but promising future, the z17 is engineered for AI agility and scalability. Upon launch, it will support 48 IBM Spyre AI accelerator chips, with plans to double that to 96 within a year. This flexibility ensures the system can handle increasingly large and complex AI models as they emerge.

Tarquinio also highlighted the z17’s energy efficiency as a major win. The system delivers 7.5x more AI acceleration on-chip while consuming 5.5x less energy than comparable multi-model AI platforms. It’s a significant improvement in both performance and sustainability.

The z17 will be generally available starting June 8, positioning IBM to help enterprises integrate AI into their infrastructure — not as an add-on, but as a foundational capability.

As AI reshapes industries, IBM’s z17 could prove that mainframes aren’t relics of the past — they’re just getting started.

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