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As enterprises approached a hardware refresh cycle and generative AI adoption ramped up, IBM offered customers a peek at the engine that will power the next generation mainframe last summer.

The high-capacity Telum II chip and AI-optimized Spyre Accelerator will provide z17 with its processing power, Tina Tarquinio, VP of product management, IBM Z and LinuxONE, told CIO Dive . In October, the company beefed up its AI p latform by adding two general-purpose Granite open source models and expanding capabilities for the watsonx coding assistant.

While software and hybrid-cloud solutions eclipsed IBM’s mainframe business, AI cost and data privacy concerns breathed new life into the enterprise workhorse .

Technology executives are bullish on mainframe’s role in AI adoption , according to an Oxford Economics survey of more than 2,500 tech chiefs commissioned by the IBM Institute for Business Value. Kyndryl found similar sentiments among 500 IT executives surveyed for its annual mainframe modernization report .

“We see more opportunities ahead as our infrastructure solutions play a crucial role in helping clients bring AI workloads closer to their data,” Krishna said Wednesday.

AI adoption has already given IBM’s other segments a boost. The company added $1.5 billion in generative AI bookings during Q4, according to Kavanaugh, and saw its data and AI software segment grow 4% year over year.

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