Power11: How IBM is Targeting AI Workloads with New Server
IBM has launched Power11, its enterprise server platform designed to handle AI workloads whilst maintaining continuous operations.
The platform targets 99.9999% uptime, equivalent to approximately 31.5 seconds of downtime per year. It also plans to support zero planned downtime for maintenance activities, addressing enterprise requirements for mission-critical applications.
Power11 represents a redesign of IBM’s Power server architecture, incorporating processor technology, hardware design and virtualisation software.
Tom McPherson, General Manager of Power Systems at IBM, says the platform addresses enterprise AI requirements, saying: “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.”
A unique server offering
AI workloads require vast amounts of data to be processed, analysed and stored with minimal latency. As a result, enterprises are now seeking platforms that can support continuous operations, defend against cyber threats and adapt to evolving business needs.
Downtime, even for routine maintenance within the data centre, is no longer acceptable in sectors where AI-driven insights power mission-critical decisions.
Research firm IDC projects that organisations will deploy one billion new logical applications by 2028, creating operational complexity for companies managing these systems. Logical applications are software programmes that perform specific business functions, distinct from the underlying infrastructure that supports them.
The platform includes IBM Power Cyber Vault, a security solution that detects ransomware threats in under one minute. This system creates immutable snapshots of data and applications, storing them separately from primary systems.
Notably, the technology follows the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework for threat identification, protection, detection and response.
Power11 also incorporates quantum-safe cryptography – technology that offers protection against problems that don’t exist yet – to protect against potential future quantum computing attacks.
IBM says this addresses concerns about ‘harvest-now, decrypt-later’ attacks, where adversaries collect encrypted data with the intention of decrypting it once quantum computers become capable of breaking current encryption methods.
The server platform will also support IBM Spyre Accelerator, a system-on-a-chip designed for AI inference workloads.
Spyre, expected to become available in the fourth quarter of 2025, will work across IBM’s enterprise systems portfolio, including Power11, z17 mainframes and LinuxONE 5 systems.
IBM reports that Power11 delivers 55% better core performance compared to Power9 systems and provides 45% more capacity through higher core counts in entry and mid-range configurations versus Power10.
The company states that Power11 offers twice the performance per watt compared to comparable x86 servers, which are systems based on Intel or AMD processors commonly used in enterprise computing.
The impact of Power11 on essential services
GuideWell, a healthcare services organisation serving Florida residents, has expressed interest in Power11’s capabilities.
William Allarey, Senior IT Manager at GuideWell, says: “With the new IBM Power11 automation capabilities, we are very interested in faster and more frequent maintenance updates with no planned downtime to keep the servers secure, stable and current, so our team can focus on delivering benefits and services for better health.”
Additionally, Temenos, a banking software provider, has indicated support for the platform.
“With the launch of Power11, that potential grows even further by bringing an AI-ready infrastructure, zero-downtime resilience and even greater performance to the financial services industry,” says William Moroney, Chief Revenue Officer at Temenos.
Power11 integrates with Red Hat OpenShift AI, a container-based platform for developing and deploying AI applications. OpenShift AI provides tools for data scientists and developers to build, train and deploy machine learning models across hybrid cloud environments.
IBM will make watsonx.data, its data lakehouse platform, available on Power11 by the end of 2025. A data lakehouse combines elements of data warehouses, which store structured data, and data lakes, which handle unstructured data, providing a unified platform for analytics and AI workloads.
The rise of hybrid cloud architectures and the integration of AI into core business applications have introduced new complexities. With this in mind, technology leaders are reimagining server platforms to meet the dual imperatives of AI acceleration and enterprise-grade resilience.
For the first time, the Power11 general availability will simultaneously include high-end, mid-range and entry servers as well as IBM Power Virtual Server in IBM Cloud.
“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,” says Jasmine Kaczmarek, Vice President of Technology at MR Williams.
“What had taken a senior developer six hours the day before, I was able to accomplish 18 times faster.”
