IBM Power11 servers deliver unprecedented AI performance, hybrid-cloud flexibility, and robust resiliency, ensuring seamless, secure operations for enterprise workloads.
IBM unveiled the IBM Power11, the latest addition to its Power server lineup. The Power11 is designed to meet the growing needs of modern businesses. With a complete redesign of processor architecture, hardware, and virtualization software, Power11 is built to deliver the availability, resiliency, performance, and scalability that organizations require for seamless hybrid deployment, whether on-premises or in the IBM Cloud.
IBM Power systems have served as the backbone of mission-critical, data-intensive workloads across various industries, including banking, healthcare, retail, and government. As companies transition to the AI era, they face a wave of new technologies and solutions. IDC predicts the launch of one billion new logical applications by 2028, creating unusual complexity. IBM Power11 is designed to address these challenges, offering simplified, always-on operations and hybrid cloud flexibility to help organizations remain competitive.
Key architectural enhancements
The IBM Power11 features notable architectural improvements. Some of these enhancements include:
The Vector Scalar Matrix (VSM) Engine v2 is an advanced processing unit designed to significantly enhance computational throughput. It doubles the performance of 8-bit and 16-bit integer (INT8) and half-precision floating-point (FP16) calculations over the Power10 architecture. This increased efficiency enables the engine to deliver more than three teraflops (TFLOPS) of performance per core, tailored explicitly for accelerating model inference tasks in machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.
Hardware Memory Tagging is a security feature that uses per-cache-line tags to protect against buffer overflows and side-channel exploits. These tags serve as a safeguard by ensuring that any buffer access is validated, thereby preventing malicious exploits that could compromise system integrity. Incorporating Hardware Memory Tagging into future x86 designs could significantly enhance security against a wide range of vulnerabilities.
The Adaptive Frequency Boost technology allows a single thread to reach ‘turbo’ speeds of up to 4.8 GHz on fewer than 25% of the cores. This feature aims to improve performance for latency-sensitive applications such as online transaction processing (OLTP). Importantly, it achieves this while maintaining a thermal design power (TDP) of below 300 Watts, ensuring efficient power management alongside high-speed performance.
IBM Power11 boasts impressive specifications. Internal benchmarks show a 2x performance per watt advantage over Intel Xeon 6 Platinum 6580 when normalized to SPECint2017_rate.
It’s also energy efficient. The server features an Energy Efficient Mode that uses firmware to toggle unnecessary execution slices, resulting in a 28% reduction in system energy consumption with a 6% decrease in throughput. This option is useful for CPU-intensive development and testing environments. The direct-water-cooling option supports 75 kW per rack, accommodating 64 sockets in a 42U footprint, compared to about 28 kW for similar x86 air-cooled designs.
Resiliency and Business Continuity
Power11 delivers resilience with 99.9999% uptime. This high availability is backed by zero planned downtime for system maintenance and a guarantee of detecting ransomware threats in less than one minute, thanks to IBM Power Cyber Vault. These features help minimize both planned and unplanned downtime from maintenance or cyber incidents, supporting continuous business operations.
Comprehensive Portfolio and Cloud Integration
For the first time, IBM is launching Power11 across its entire server lineup, including high-end, mid-range, and entry-level systems, as well as IBM Power Virtual Server in IBM Cloud. This approach enables organizations to quickly and flexibly migrate Power workloads to the cloud. Notably, IBM Power Virtual Server is certified as a hyperscaler platform for RISE with SAP, emphasizing its enterprise-level capabilities. RISE with SAP is a guided transformation journey designed for SAP ERP customers to quickly unlock the full potential of Business Suite, supported by proven methodologies, advanced tools, and expert guidance.
Power11 also adds support for the IBM Spyre Accelerator, IBM’s new system-on-a-chip built specifically for AI-focused inference workloads. Coming in Q4 2025, Spyre will be integrated into IBM’s enterprise systems, including Power11, IBM z17, and LinuxONE 5. This advanced AI accelerator will enable organizations to efficiently scale AI workloads across hybrid cloud environments, offering the performance required for next-generation applications.
Intelligent Performance and Efficiency
Power11 introduces autonomous operations that intelligently optimize performance and reduce operational complexity. With up to 55% better core performance compared to Power9 and up to 45% more capacity in entry and mid-range systems versus Power10, Power11 empowers enterprises to achieve greater flexibility and security.
Key Innovations and Benefits
Power11 offers zero planned downtime by using autonomous patching and automated workload migration, enabling IT teams to upgrade without taking critical applications offline. Integration with IBM Concert and generative AI enhances risk detection, provides valuable insights, and facilitates automated remediation, particularly in security patch management. IBM Technology Lifecycle Services (TLS) provides AI-driven monitoring and proactive support, boosting reliability and performance.
IBM Power Cyber Vault offers integrated cyber resiliency based on the NIST framework, featuring proactive, immutable snapshots that defend against data corruption and encryption attacks. Power11 features quantum-safe cryptography to address emerging threats, such as harvest-now and decrypt-later attacks.
Power11 is designed for AI, with integrated on-chip acceleration for inference and scalable performance through the IBM Spyre Accelerator. It supports Red Hat OpenShift AI and open-source tools, allowing for the deployment of hybrid AI solutions. IBM watsonx Code Assistant for i simplifies application modernization, and watsonx.data, a hybrid data lakehouse, will be available on Power11 by the end of 2025, fostering data-driven innovation.
Power11 improves operational and energy efficiency by delivering twice the performance per watt compared to similar x86 servers and achieving up to 28% greater efficiency in Energy Efficient Mode versus Max Performance Mode. These enhancements lower operational costs and environmental impact.
Tom McPherson, GM of Power Systems at IBM, highlights that Power11 is designed to speed up AI integration and help clients fully leverage hybrid cloud, AI, and automation solutions. This launch reaffirms IBM’s reputation as a dependable partner for organizations running their most critical workloads.
Availability
IBM Power11 will be generally available on July 25, 2025, with the IBM Spyre Accelerator expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2025.
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