IBM’s Next-Gen Mainframe Chip Is the First to Run Arm and Z Workloads on the Same Cores
The 2-nanometer chip has 11 cores and on-chip AI accelerators, and IBM says it will let Arm-native Linux run alongside z/OS workloads.
- On Monday at the annual Hot Chips conference, IBM announced its first dual-architecture mainframe processor, enabling enterprises to execute IBM Z and Arm-native workloads concurrently on future systems.
- Tina Tarquinio, chief product officer for IBM Z and LinuxONE, said the move supports the Arm software ecosystem, which includes more than 22 million developers and increasingly defines modern AI infrastructure.
- Christian Jacobi, chief technology officer and IBM Fellow at IBM Systems Development, explained the chip's 11 cores dynamically switch between architectures in nanoseconds, resulting in effectively zero performance penalty.
- Organizations can now deploy large language models and agentic workflows directly alongside mission-critical data, extending the mainframe's relevance in an AI-driven era.
- IBM holds to a roughly three-year product cadence, pointing to a launch for this new processor around 2028 in the successor to the z17 mainframe.
16 Articles
16 Articles
IBM’s next-gen mainframe chip is the first to run Arm and Z workloads on the same cores
IBM is announcing today at the annual Hot Chips conference what may be the most consequential change to mainframe architecture in decades: a processor whose cores can natively execute both IBM's own instruction set and Arm's — switching between the two in nanoseconds.The chip, which will power the next generation of IBM Z and LinuxONE systems, is the first dual-architecture mainframe processor ever built. It is designed to let enterprises run th…
PR Newswire
IBM Unveils Next Generation Dual-Architecture Processor for IBM Z and LinuxONE
/PRNewswire/ -- At the annual Hot Chips conference, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today is announcing the first dual-architecture mainframe processor, which is being...
IBM’s 2nm Dual-Architecture Mainframe Processor Runs Arm and IBM Z Instructions in the Same Cores
At the Hot Chips conference, IBM revealed the industry’s first dual-architecture mainframe processor, engineered for future generations of IBM Z and LinuxONE enterprise systems. Developed through the joint collaboration between IBM and Arm in April 2026, the processor will allow organizations to run Arm-native Linux operating environments alongside traditional z/OS and Linux on IBM Z workloads within the same physical footprint. The unified desi…
Hot Chips 2026: IBM's first dual-ISA core natively executes ARM and z/Architecture in the same core; all cores run at 5.7 GHz base frequency — next-gen mainframe AI processor is built on 2nm node with 11 cores
This Tom's Hardware Premium article is free to read with a Tom's Hardware account; no payment necessary. We're offering free access from August 23 to 26 so you can read all of our reporting from Hot Chips.IBM's next-gen AI processor is the first time it has supported dual ISA execution natively within the same core. Born out of a collaboration between IBM and Arm that was announced in April, the chip is designed to bring the software support ava…
IBM's first dual-ISA core natively executes ARM and z/Architecture in the same core; all cores run at 5.7 GHz base frequency — next-gen mainframe AI processor is built on 2nm node with 11 cores
IBM's next-gen AI processor is the first time it has supported dual ISA execution natively within the same core. Born out of a collaboration between IBM and Arm that was announced in April, the chip is designed to bring the software support available across the Arm ecosystem to IBM's mainframes, allowing businesses to unify deployment rather than relying on separate Arm/x86 servers and z/Architecture mainframes for different purposes. The approa…
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