[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang (황치규)] IBM unveiled a compact z17 mainframe and a LinuxONE 5 server lineup, targeting on-premise enterprise AI demand. SiliconANGLE reported on July 7 local time that the new products consist of single-frame and rack-mounted z17 systems, the small-form-factor IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper 5 and IBM LinuxONE 5 Express.

IBM reduced the size of the z17 so it can be mounted in a standard 19-inch rack. It launched LinuxONE Rockhopper 5 and LinuxONE 5 Express for the first time with more flexible form factors and lower prices. It said this will allow smaller organisations to use mainframes more easily.

The new single-frame and rack-mounted z17 supports up to 82 cores and 18 terabytes of memory across 2 processor drawers. Equipped with the IBM Telum II processor, it offers 10 percent higher single-thread performance and up to 20 percent greater overall throughput than the z16.

LinuxONE Rockhopper 5 can handle workloads comparable to 23 x86 servers of similar size. It is designed for transaction processing and AI workloads, and can cut power consumption by up to 83 percent compared with general servers, IBM said. When running AI-integrated online transaction processing workloads on Red Hat OpenShift, it can handle the same amount of work with 4 times fewer cores than a general x86 configuration.

LinuxONE 5 Express is a preconfigured product aimed at small businesses. It can be deployed alongside existing x86 servers and does not require separate cooling or power facility upgrades.

The systems support real-time AI inference, fraud detection and automated decision-making within the same facility without moving data to the cloud. IBM Spyre Accelerator supports running generative AI and agent-based applications together with transaction data workloads within the same security perimeter.

IBM also updated its software stack along with the hardware. The new infrastructure management platform supports infrastructure as code and OpenTelemetry. Post-quantum cryptography is applied by default, and it includes advanced encryption tasks and tools to modernise COBOL applications.