As more organizations embrace the promise of artificial intelligence to further drive business value, we are seeing clients in industries such as retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and transportation are deploying workloads at the edge to capitalize on data where it originates. In their March 2024 Market Guide for Edge Computing, Gartner^® notes, “By placing data, data management capabilities and analytic workloads at optimal points, ranging all the way to endpoint devices, enterprises can enable more real-time use cases. In addition, the flexibility to move data management workloads up and down the continuum from centralized data centers or from the cloud-to-edge devices will enable greater optimization of resources.”[1]

To aid in that effort, today IBM announced the expansion of its portfolio of servers with the introduction of IBM® Power® S1012. This 1-socket, half-wide Power10 processor-based system delivers up to 3X more performance per core versus Power S812. [2] It is available in a 2U rack-mounted or tower deskside form factor and is optimized for edge-level computing and  also delivers the lowest entry price point in the Power portolio to run core workloads for small and medium-sized organizations. IBM Power S1012 provides clients the flexibility to run AI inferencing workloads in remote office and back office (ROBO) locations outside mainstream datacenter facilities, and in direct connection to cloud services such as IBM® Power® Virtual Server for backup and disaster recovery.

Achieving more in less space at the edge

IBM Power S1012 is designed to enhance remote management capabilities for clients looking to expand applications such as AI inferencing from core to cloud and at the edge. Edge computing can also provide a competitive advantage with real-time insights across industries, with examples that include analyzing customer behavior in retail; monitoring and optimizing production processes in manufacturing; and many others.

IBM and enhanced analytics ecosystem partner Equitus joint clients use IBM Power to run AI models at the edge to provide object classification for defense purposes. “Equitus Corp. needed mission-critical hardware platforms for deep edge, forward operations, air-gapped, and traditional cloud environments. We found that IBM Power10 and its Matrix Math Accelerator (MMA) delivered the best tech for inferencing on the edge as easily as in the data center,” said Matt Niessen, President, Equitus Federal Corp. “Today, clients can deploy our Equitus Video Sentinel (EVS) and Knowledge Graph Neural Network (KGNN) AI systems on IBM Power10 servers and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform for many use cases, including the most crucial ones like helping protect national security. IBM Power S1012 will provide the latest capabilities to support AI inferencing where the data itself is generated.”

IBM Power S1012 is engineered to:

• Enable AI Inferencing at the Edge: By deploying Power S1012  at the edge, clients can run AI inferencing at the point of data, thus eliminating data transfers. Each Power S1012 includes Four Matrix Math Accelerators per core to support AI inferencing. To ensure insights remain a competitive advantage and don’t fall into the wrong hands, transparent memory encryption with Power10 secures data in and out of AI models running locally addressing data leaks. Moreover, with advanced remote management capabilities and Power10 best in class reliability feartures^[3], IBM Power S1012 allows organizations to efficiently manage and monitor their IT environments remotely, to enhance responsiveness and minimize downtime. High-availability features such as redundant hardware and failover mechanisms can help ensure continuous operation, all within a compact physical footprint.
• Reduce IT footprint and increase core performance for AIX and IBM i clients: For small to midsize IBM i clients, the Power S1012 provides a path to the latest Power10 processor-based technology. Available with 1, 4, or 8 processor cores to improve IT economics and efficiency for business-critical IBM i applications, clients can improve the performance up to 3X versus the Power S814[4]. Moreover, the Power S1012 2U half-wide design can reduce space allocated to a client’s IT physical footprint by up to 75% versus the Power S1014 4U rack server and allows for application and IT management convergence with the option to use one server for production side-by-side with the other hosting a virtual hardware management console (vHMC) or to be used for development, test or high availability.

Support and availability

Maintaining high availability throughout the life of systems like IBM Power S1012 is critical. IBM Power Expert Care offers a way of attaching services and support through a tiered approach right away. Clients can receive an optimum level of support for the mission-critical requirements of their IT infrastructure with options ranging from 3 to 5 years of coverage depending on the support tier. Additionally, there are optional committed service levels available, depending on client needs, which can provide further customization and support.

IBM Power S1012 will be generally available from IBM and certified Business Partners on June 14, 2024.