en.Wedoany.com Reported - IBM has announced the launch of new z17 and LinuxONE 5 rack-mount and single-frame systems, marking the first time the company has offered both deployment options across its entire Z and LinuxONE product portfolio. The expanded portfolio maintains the same flagship performance, security, and ecosystem standards in engineering, providing organizations with more ways to deploy infrastructure in locations that best meet business needs.

According to CBRE's 2026 Global Data Center Trends Report, organizations processing highly sensitive workloads at scale are facing historically low data center vacancy rates and rents exceeding $400 per kilowatt per month. IBM noted that enterprises can leverage the new systems to optimize data center space, ensuring core application resilience while reducing physical footprint.

Tom McPherson, General Manager of IBM Z and LinuxONE, stated that the growth of mission-critical workloads is forcing organizations to make trade-offs between performance, AI integration, and infrastructure footprint. The new systems make it easier to run workloads in the most suitable locations and open the door for more organizations to benefit from these technologies for the first time.

The new IBM z17 and IBM LinuxONE 5 configurations support up to 82 cores and 18 TB of memory, distributed across two processor drawers, with an approximately 20% increase in core count and a 12% increase in memory capacity. The single-processor capacity of the IBM z17 ME2 provides full-speed IBM z/OS configurations, delivering 10% higher throughput per core compared to the IBM z16 A02, depending on workload and configuration.

Customers can co-locate IBM and non-IBM equipment. The new systems include: IBM z17 Single-Frame (fully enclosed, including IBM rack and intelligent power distribution unit), IBM z17 Rack-Mount (installable into customer-owned standard racks), IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper 5 (scalable multi-drawer system with on-chip AI acceleration, confidential computing, and post-quantum cryptography, available in single-frame and rack-mount configurations), and IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper 5 Rack-Mount and Express products (18U compact configuration for smaller workload sets, offering a cost-effective entry point).

These single-frame and rack-mount systems provide multi-model AI inference via the IBM Telum II processor, Red Hat OpenShift AI, and IBM Spyre accelerator, supporting predictive AI within transactions and generative AI. IBM also announced new software and management capabilities, including: IBM Infrastructure Management for Z and LinuxONE, which integrates provisioning, configuration, and operations; IBM COBOL Elevate for z/OS, designed to simplify COBOL application modernization (available starting September 18); post-quantum cryptography security now included as standard; and the new IBM Crypto Discovery & Inventory feature.

Dr. Owain Kenway, Head of ARC Research Platforms (Technology) at University College London, stated that the new IBM LinuxONE 5 single-frame, rack-mount, and Express models enable his organization to access advanced technology at an affordable price. The new z17 single-frame and rack-mount configurations, IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper 5, and IBM LinuxONE 5 Express will be generally available on August 12, 2026. IBM Infrastructure Management for IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE will be generally available on August 14, 2026.