International Business Machines (IBM) has revealed a new processor chip for data centers – promising to handle three times the workload of its predecessor.
IBM POWER10, IBM’s first commercialized processor built using 7nm process technology,
is expected to deliver up to 3x gain in processor energy efficiency per socket, increasing workload capacity in the same power envelope as IBM POWER9.
IBM said this improvement in capacity is designed to allow IBM POWER10-based systems to support up to 3x increases in users, workloads and OpenShift container density for hybrid cloud workloads as compared to IBM POWER9-based systems.
Samsung will manufacture the IBM-designed Power10 chip. The chip will use Samsung’s 7-nanometer chip manufacturing process, which is similar to the 7-nanometer technology that Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) uses to have its chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), Reuters reported.
Both IBM and AMD use outside chip factories to compete against Intel, the dominant provider of central processor chips in data centers and one of the few players left that both designs and manufactures its own chips.
Some of the new processor innovations include:
# IBM’s First Commercialized 7nm Processor that is expected to deliver up to a 3x improvement in capacity and processor energy efficiency within the same power envelope as IBM POWER9, allowing for greater performance
# Support for Multi-Petabyte Memory Clusters with a breakthrough new technology called Memory Inception, designed to improve cloud capacity and economics for memory-intensive workloads from ISVs like SAP, the SAS Institute, and others as well as large-model AI inference
# New Hardware-Enabled Security Capabilities including transparent memory encryption to support security
# IBM POWER10 processor is engineered to achieve faster encryption performance with quadruple the number of AES encryption engines per core compared to IBM POWER9
New Processor Core Architectures in the IBM POWER10 processor with an embedded Matrix Math Accelerator which is extrapolated to provide 10x, 15x and 20x faster AI inference for FP32, BFloat16 and INT8 calculations per socket respectively than the IBM POWER9 processor to infuse AI into business applications and drive greater insights.
Stephen Leonard, GM of IBM Cognitive Systems, said, in a statement: “With our stated goal of making Red Hat OpenShift the default choice for hybrid cloud, IBM POWER10 brings hardware-based capacity and security enhancements for containers to the IT infrastructure level.”
