After introducing its successor z15 (opens in a new tab) earlier this year, IBM has unveiled its new z16 mainframe featuring an on-chip AI accelerator (opens in a new tab).
With the inclusion of an on-chip AI accelerator, the new IBM z16 enables clients to analyze real-time transactions at scale for mission-critical workloads, including credit cards, healthcare and financial transactions.
AI inference is made possible by the embedded IBM z16 Telum processor that enables banks to analyze transaction fraud on a large scale for the first time. In fact, the new mainframe can process 300 billion inference requests per day with just one millisecond of latency.
The new capabilities of the IBM z16 also open up new use cases for other industries and the device could be used to speed consumer and business loan approvals by determining which trades or transactions present high risk before settlement and federated learning to retailer to better model the risk of fraud and theft.
IBM Systems Senior Vice President, Ric Lewis, provided additional information in a press release (opens in a new tab) on how businesses across all industries can harness the power of IBM z16, saying:
"IBM is the gold standard for highly secure transaction processing. Now, with IBM z16 innovations, our clients can increase decision speed through inference where their critical data resides. This opens up tremendous opportunities for innovators in their respective industries so they can be positioned to deliver better customer experiences and more powerful business outcomes."
A safe quantum system
In addition to AI inference, the new IBM z16 is also the industry's first secure quantum system.
IBM has designed its new mainframe to be secure against current and future cyber threats. One future threat of particular concern is how cybercriminals have begun stealing data now so they can decrypt it later (Opens in a new tab) using the power of quantum computing (Opens in a new tab).
As such, the IBM z16 relies on lattice-based cryptography that creates security primitives that help protect data and systems against current and future threats. Device quantum-safe cryptography enables enterprises to future-proof their applications and data today, rather than waiting to do so in the future.
Meanwhile, IBM's Secure Boot feature prevents cybercriminals from injecting malware (opens in a new tab) into the z16's boot process in an attempt to take control of the system at startup. At the same time, the device's Crypto Express 8S (CEX8S) hardware security module provides customers with classical and quantum cryptographic technology.
The IBM z16 will be generally available in late May, and businesses interested in the company's new mainframe can check out this blog post (opens in a new tab) from IBM Z CEO Ross Mauri.