IBM on Tuesday announced the newest version of its famous mainframe: the IBM z17. Powered by the latest IBM Telum II processor, IBM z17 culminates five years of research and development. It features AI capabilities across hardware, software, and systems operations. “IBM Z is built to redefine AI at scale,” IBM said in the press release.

IBM has designed the new z17 mainframe platform to enable AI across many of its functions. It is designed to bring AI workloads closer to enterprise data.

Every two to three years, IBM refreshes its mainframe lineup with a new model that brings improved performance and expanded capabilities. IBM works with its clients to push the mainframe in the right direction, and lately, that direction has been toward artificial intelligence (AI).

The IBM z17 mainframe can process 450 billion AI inferences a day, a significant step up from what its predecessor could.

The new processor enables the system to perform more than 450 billion AI inferencing operations per day, achieving latency as low as one millisecond.

Outfitted with the Telum II processor and Spyre accelerator, the IBM z17 bolsters response times, throughput, observability, and security with AI workloads in mind.