IBM Power11 to transform AI and security for organizations

Computer Business Solutions was also announced as the first customer and business partner to purchase the IBM Power 11 in APAC

As the IBM Power11 will be officially available from July 25^th onwards, IBM has been showcasing the capabilities of the latest server to partners and customers around the Southeast Asian region.

At the showcase event in Malaysia, Computer Business Solutions Sdn Bhd (CBS) was announced as the first customer to purchase the IBM Power11 in the APAC region. The IBM Premier Business Partner is now working with IBM to provide customers with the IBM Power11, the next generation of IBM Power servers. Apart from CBS, other partners offering the Power11 in Malaysia include Silverlake, Crest, SL Information and more.

The new Power11 server is redesigned with innovations across its processor, hardware architecture, and virtualization software stack. Specifically, Power11 is designed to deliver the availability, resiliency, performance, and scalability of enterprises demand, for seamless hybrid deployment on-premises or in IBM Cloud.

According to Dickson Woo, General Manager for IBM Malaysia, the pressure organizations in Malaysia and other countries in the region are facing is mostly on the speed to AI adoption. At the same time, being able to minimize downtime from cyberattacks is also crucial for organizations today.

“The resiliency of Power11 is not a question. It gives zero planned downtime and the availability uptime to six nines (99.9999%), which is quite revolutionary in today's server market,” said Woo.

IBM has stated that the Power11 is designed to be the most resilient server in the history of the IBM Power platform, with 99.9999% uptime. Together with zero planned downtime for system maintenance and less than one-minute guaranteed ransomware threat detection with IBM Power Cyber Vault, Power11 sets a new bar for business continuity, addressing both planned and cyber-incident-related downtime.

The Power11 general availability will simultaneously include high-end, mid-range, and entry servers as well as IBM Power Virtual Server in IBM Cloud. IBM Power Virtual Server offers a fast path to the cloud for Power workloads and is certified as a hyperscaler platform for RISE with SAP. Power11 will also be the first IBM Power server to support the IBM Spyre Accelerator, IBM's system-on-a-chip available Q4 2025 that is purpose-built for today's AI-intensive inference workloads.

Modernizing with demand

While the capabilities of the Power11 go beyond the previous versions, Woo also acknowledged that most customers in Malaysia are still running on Power9 and Power10.

During the event, a banking customer also highlighted how they had only invested in Power10. However, they felt the capabilities of Power11 are seemingly more promising, especially in meeting the demands of AI and security today.

“Power11 is a more modernised system. In fact, the previous version of power is already quite rock solid. But of course, today with all these new features that come along, it helps the system to be more modernized, more open and more receptive to take on not only the workload of the current, but also the workload of the future. Customers don’t need to have the rip-off kind of a strategy, but it's about protecting what they have already from a system,” explained Woo.

Woo also highlighted that they already have a customer that is interested in Power11. Specifically, he explained that the customer has been following IBM’s roadmap and is ready to be the first adopter.

“If you look at the current technology life cycle, there are a lot of customers of ours that keep wanting more from the current system that we have. Based on the feedback from customers, they want to be more quantum safe in order to prevent cyberattack in the future. Customers want a system that's responsive and has the ability to detect ransomware, because ransomware is getting very prevalent nowadays. So, Power11 is able to detect the ransomware in a minute and then immediately invoke that immutable backup system to recover. And this is also in compliance with regulatory requirements,” said Woo.

AI and Cybersecurity

Woo also pointed out that customers are looking at Power11 for both its AI and cybersecurity capabilities. Referring to results from an IBM survey, Woo said the doubled AI adoption speed proves that CEOs believe that AI is no longer just a buzzword, but becoming a competitive advantage to an organization, whereby they can delight their customers, getting more intimacy with the customers. AI can also help them to improve their operational efficiency, and at the same time, of course, reduce costs and more.

“So, with all this in mind, everyone wants to explore and adopt AI as a strategic advantage, and it's no longer a buzzword, but it's already become a board kind of a decision. But of course, when you have the advancement of AI, it opens up possibilities to cyberattacks as well, because the more computing power that you deploy, the more open and vulnerable your system is to be attacked by the cyberattack. So, these two actually go hand in hand. Companies are really looking for a system that can do all these multiple things, not only keeping their lights on, the traditional, but also the innovation part like AI and cybersecurity,” said Woo.

While there are still many customers using previous Power versions, Woo stated that customers who believe in charging forward will go for a more forward-looking model as in what future workload and what innovation piece of technology adoption they want to embark on.

“We always believe in investment protection. So, we believe that the system should last and can stretch as long as possible just to protect customers' investment. At IBM, we also collect a lot of feedback from the ground, from the customers as well as on what they need from us. So, our R&D team is actually very actively listening and at the same time doing research and development to create something that caters for future use. Now that we're talking about Power 11, in the lab, they have already started designing about 12, 13 and beyond and all that. So, it depends on the needs and requirements of customers' maturity level as in what technology they want to adopt,” concluded Woo.