IBM AI Study: Would The Research Report Get an A in Statistics 202?
May 9, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
IBM, reinvigorated with its easy-to-use, backwards-compatible, AI-capable mainframe released a research report about AI. Will these findings cause the new IBM AI-capable mainframe to sell like Jeopardy / Watson “I won” T shirts?
Perhaps.
The report is “Five Mindshifts to Supercharge Business Growth.” It runs a mere 40 pages and requires no more time than configuring your new LinuxONE Emperor 5 mainframe. Well, the report can be absorbed in less time, but the Emperor 5 is a piece of cake as IBM mainframes go.
Here are a few of the findings revealed by IBM in its IBM research report;
AI can improve customer “experience”. I think this means that customer service becomes better with AI in it. Study says, “72 percent of those in the sample agree.”
Turbulence becomes opportunity. 100 percent of the IBM marketers assembling the report agree. I am not sure how many CEOs are into this concept; for example, Hollywood motion picture firms or Georgia Pacific which closed a factory and told workers not to come in tomorrow.
Here’s a graphic from the IBM study. Do you know what’s missing? I will give you five seconds as Arvin Haddad, the LA real estate influencer says in his entertaining YouTube videos:
The answer is, “Increasing revenues, boosting revenues, and keeping stakeholders thrilled with their payoffs.” The items listed by IBM really don’t count, do they?
“Embrace AI-fueled creative destruction.” Yep, another 100 percenter from the IBM team. No supporting data, no verification, and not even a hint of proof that AI-fueled creative destruction is doing much more than making lots of venture outfits and some of the US AI leaders is improving their lives. That cash burn could set the forest on fire, couldn’t it? Answer: Of course not.
I must admit I was baffled by this table of data:
Accelerate growth and efficiency goes down with generative AI. (Is Dr. Gary Marcus right?). Enhanced decision making goes up with generative AI. Are the decisions based on verifiable facts or hallucinated outputs? Maybe busy executives in the sample choose to believe what AI outputs because a computer like the Emperor 5 was involved. Maybe “easy” is better than old-fashioned problem solving which is expensive, slow, and contentious. “Just let AI tell me” is a more modern, streamlined approach to decision making in a time of uncertainty. And the dotted lines? Hmmm.
On page 40 of the report, I spotted this factoid. It is tiny and hard to read.
The text says, “50 percent say their organization has disconnected technology due to the pace of recent investments.” I am not exactly sure what this means. Operative words are “disconnected” and “pace of … investments.” I would hazard an interpretation: “Hey, this AI costs too much and the payoff is just not obvious.”
I wish to offer some observations:
- IBM spent some serious money designing this report
- The pagination is in terms of double page spreads, so the “study” plus rah rah consumes about 80 pages if one were to print it out. On my laser printer the pages are illegible for a human, but for the designers, the approach showcases the weird ice cubes, the dotted lines, and allows important factoids to be overlooked
- The combination of data (which strike me as less of a home run for the AI fan and more of a report about AI friction) and flat out marketing razzle dazzle is intriguing. I would have enjoyed sitting in the meetings which locked into this approach. My hunch is that when someone thought about the allegedly valid results and said, “You know these data are sort of anti-AI,” then the others in the meeting said, “We have to convert the study into marketing diamonds.” The result? The double truck, design-infused, data tinged report.
Good work, IBM. The study will definitely sell truckloads of those Emperor 5 mainframes.
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2025
Google: Making Users Cross Their Eyes in Confusion
May 9, 2025
No AI, just a dinobaby watching the world respond to the tech bros.
I read “Don’t Make It Like Google.” The article points out that Google’s “control” extends globally. The company’s approach to software and design are ubiquitous. People just make software like Google because it seems “right.”
The author of the essay says:
Developers frequently aim to make things “like Google” because it feels familiar and, seemingly, the right way to do things. In the past, this was an implicit influence, but now it’s direct: Google became the platform for web applications (Chrome) and mobile applications (Android). It also created a framework for human-machine interaction: Material Design. Now, “doing it like Google” isn’t just desirable; it’s necessary.
Regulators in the European Union have not figured out how to respond to this type of alleged “monopoly.”
The author points out:
Most tech products now look indistinguishable, just a blobby primordial mess of colors.
Why? The author provides an answer:
Google’s actual UI & UX design is terrible. Whether mass-market or enterprise, web or mobile, its interfaces are chaotic and confusing. Every time I use Google Drive or the G Suite admin console, I feel lost. Neither experience nor intuition helps—I feel like an old man seeing a computer for the first time.
I quite like the reference to the author’s feeling like an “old man seeing a computer for the first time.” As a dinobaby, I find Google’s approach to making functions available — note, I am going to use a dinobaby term — stupid. Simple functions to me are sorting emails by sender and a keyword. I have not figured out how to do this in Gmail. I have given up on Google Maps. I have zero clue how to access the “old” street view with a basic map on a mobile device. Hey, am I the only person in an unfamiliar town trying to locate a San Jose-type office building in a tan office park? I assume I am.
The author points out:
Instead of prioritizing objectively good user experiences, the more profitable choice is often to mimic Google’s design. Not because developers are bad or lazy. Not because users enjoy clunky interfaces. But because it “makes sense” from the perspective of development costs and marketing. It’s tricky to praise Apple while criticizing Google because where Google has clumsy interfaces, Apple has bugs and arbitrary restrictions. But if we focus purely on interface design, Apple demonstrates how influence over users and developers can foster generations of well-designed products. On average, an app in Apple’s ecosystem is more polished and user-friendly than one in Google’s.
I am not sure that Apple is that much better than Google, but for me, the essay makes clear that giant US technology companies shape the user’s reality. The way information is presented and what expert users learn may not be appropriate for most people. I understand that these companies have to have a design motif or template. I understand that big companies have “experts” who determine what users do and want.
The author of the essay says:
We’ve become accustomed to the unintuitive interfaces of washing machines and microwaves. A new washing machine may be quieter, more efficient, and more aesthetically pleasing, yet its dials and icons still feel alien; or your washing machine now requires an app. Manufacturers have no incentive to improve this aspect—they just do it “like the Google of their industry.” And the “Google” of any industry inevitably gets worse over time.
I disagree. I think that making interfaces impossible is a great thing. Now here’s my reasoning: Who wants to expend energy figuring out a “better way.” The name of the game is to get eyeballs. Looking like Google or any of the big technology companies means that one just rolls over and takes what these firms offer as a default. Mind control and behavior conditioning is much easier and ultimately more profitable than approaching a problem from the user’s point of view. Why not define what a user gets, make it difficult or impossible to achieve a particular outcome, and force the individual to take what is presented as the one true way.
That makes business sense.
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2025
Waymo Self Driving Cars: Way Safer, Waymo Says
May 9, 2025
This dinobaby believes everything he reads online. I know that statistically valid studies conducted by companies about their own products are the gold standard in data collection and analysis. If you doubt this fact of business life in 2025, you are not in the mainstream.
I read “Waymo Says Its Robotaxis Are Up to 25x Safer for Pedestrians and Cyclists.” I was thrilled. Imagine. I could stand in front of a Waymo robotaxi holding my new grandchild and know that the vehicle would not strike us. I wonder if my son and his wife would allow me to demonstrate my faith in the Google.
The write up explains that a Waymo study proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Waymo robotaxis are way, way, way safer than any other robotaxi. Here’s a sampling of the proof:
92 percent fewer crashes with injuries to pedestrians
82 percent fewer crashes with injuries to kids and adults on bicycles
82 percent fewer crashes with senior citizens on scooters and adults on motorcycles.
Google has made available a big, fat research paper which provides more knock out data about the safety of the firm’s smart robot driven vehicles. If you want to dig into the document with inputs from six really smart people, click this link.
The study is a first, and it is, in my opinion, a quantumly supreme example of research. I do not believe that Google’s smart software was used to create any synthetic data. I know that if a Waymo vehicle and another firm’s robot-driven car speed at an 80 year old like myself 100 times each, the Waymo vehicles will only crash into me 18 times. I have no idea how many times I would be killed or injured if another firm’s smart vehicle smashed into me. Those are good odds, right?
The paper has a number of compelling presentations of data. Here’s an example:
This particular chart uses the categories of striking and struck, but only a trivial amount of these kinetic interactions raise eyebrows. No big deal. That’s why the actual report consumed only 58 pages of text and hard facts. Obvious superiority.
Would you stand in front of a Waymo driving at you as the sun sets?
I am a dinobaby, and I don’t think an automobile would do too much damage if it did hit me. Would my son’s wife allow me to hold my grandchild in my arms as I demonstrated my absolute confidence in the Alphabet Google YouTube Waymo technology? Answer: Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2025
Stanford University Students and Their Entrepreneurial Drive
May 9, 2025
Signal is useful for more than spreading state secrets. One enterprising resident of the San Francisco Bay Area used the encrypted messaging service for a different shady endeavor. SFGate reports, “Stanford Grad Sentenced for ‘DoorDash-Style’ Drug Trafficking Service.” 31-year old Natalie Marie Gonzalez was sentenced to over four years in federal prison for leading the operation. She and three co-conspirators were first indicted in 2023 after a raid turned up almost a kilogram of fentanyl, about seven kilograms of cocaine, some ketamine, methamphetamine masquerading as Adderall, and other illegal drugs. That is quite the selection. The service included creative measures designed to hide the fact that meetups were actually drug deals. Reporter Madilynne Medina describes the operation:
“The drug trafficking service operated from April to September, 2023. According to the attorney’s office, customers would place orders from ‘a menu of drugs for sale’ through the encrypted messaging system Signal. Orders required a $300 order minimum for the delivery, and Gonzalez paid her co-conspirators to work as drivers. Per the criminal complaint, an undercover agent first used the service to order cocaine and 2,000 fake Adderall pills that contained meth. Gonzalez instructed the agent to ‘hop in’ the car for a short ‘‘‘Uber” ride around the block’ to cover up the drug transaction when the driver arrived with the delivery on March 29, 2023. The agent then made multiple other purchases. During one of the sales in July 2023, the agent was even given the option to play with a dog to cover up the drug deal, the complaint shows. According to the agent, Gonzalez said her customers were ‘a lot of students and young professionals.’”
Ah, modern technology. Four years in prison is no fun but, as Medina reports, the maximum penalty Gonzalaz faced was 20 years and a $1 million fine. Let us hope she finds more above-board uses for her innovation once released. Stanford University is an interesting institution: Synthetic data and synthetic contraband. Will the individual get to rub shoulders with the former Stanford president who resigned due to research irregularities. Pacesetters indeed.
Cynthia Murrell, May 9, 2025
Apple and Google Relationship: Starting to Fray?
May 8, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
I spotted a reference to an Apple manager going out on a limb of the old, Granny Smith tree. At the end of the limb, the Apple guru allegedly suggested that the Google search ain’t what it used to be. Whether true or not, Apple pays the Google lots of money to be the really but formerly wonderful Web search system for the iPhone and Safari “experience.”
That assertion of decline touched a nerve at the Google. I noted this statement in the Google blog. I am not sure which one because Google has many pages of smarmy talk. I am a dinobaby and easily confused. Here’s that what Google document with the SEO friendly title “Here’s Our Statement on This Morning’s Press Reports about Search Traffic” says:
We continue to see overall query growth in Search. That includes an increase in total queries coming from Apple’s devices and platforms. More generally, as we enhance Search with new features, people are seeing that Google Search is more useful for more of their queries — and they’re accessing it for new things and in new ways, whether from browsers or the Google app, using their voice or Google Lens. We’re excited to continue this innovation and look forward to sharing more at Google I/O.
Several observations:
- I love the royal “we”. I think that the Googlers who are nervous about search include the cast of the Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Act. Search means ads. Ads mean money. Money means Wall Street. Therefore, a decline in search makes the Wall Street types jumpy, twitchy, and grumpy. Do not suggest traffic declines when controlling the costs of the search plumbing are becoming quite interesting for the Googley bean counters.
- Apple device users are searching Google a lot. I believe it. Monopolies like to have captives who don’t know that there are now alternatives to the somewhat uninspiring version of Jon Kleinberg’s CLEVER inventions spiced with some Fancy Dan weighting. These “weights” are really useful for boosting I believe.
- The leap to user satisfaction with Google search is unsupported by audited data. Those happy faces don’t convey why millions of people are using ChatGPT or why people complain that Google search results are mostly advertising. Oh, well, when one is a monopoly controlling what’s presented to users within the content of big spending advertisers, reality is what the company chooses to present.
- The Google is excited about its convention. Will it be similar to the old network marketing conventions or more like the cheerleading at Telegram’s Gateway Conference? It doesn’t matter. Google is excited.
Net net: The alleged Apple remark goosed the Google to make “our statement.” Outstanding defensive tone and posture. Will the pair seek counseling?
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2025
European Union: Academics and Researchers, Come On Over to Freedom
May 8, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
Is the European Union actively advertising employment opportunities in Western Europe? Do canines sniff? I think the answer is, “Yes.”
I spotted an official European Commission announcement with the title or one of the titles: “Choose Europe. Advance Your Research Career in the EU.” Another title in the official online statement is, “Choose Groundbreaking Research.” The document says,
As a world-leading centre for research and innovation with freedom of science, the European Union offers an ideal environment to advance your career. With a wealth of stable and predictable funding opportunities and cutting-edge facilities, the EU enables researchers to work on projects where they can truly make a difference. You’ll join a dynamic and international community of top talent, all dedicated to finding solutions to the world’s biggest challenges. Europe offers an excellent quality of life, including affordable healthcare and education, excellent working conditions and strong social security for you and your family. You’ll also enjoy freedoms and protections based on our values.
I found the word choice quite interesting; for example:
affordable healthcare and education
dynamic and international community
excellent working conditions
freedom and freedoms (bang, bang!)
ideal environment
protections
quality of life
strong social security
top talent
values
world-leading
The word choice reveals what the EU thinks will appeal to some American academics and researchers as well as to others in different countries. One might think that this employment advertisement is identifying specific issues associated with certain non-EU countries.
To make the opportunity more concrete, the write up presents these data:
If I were young again, this type of lingo might appeal to me. I, however, am a dinobaby. Becoming a big-time academic researcher is a non-starter for me. For some, however, the EU’s inducement might be compelling. I have done projects and spent a reasonable amount of time in London and Paris. My son attended two universities in France, and I am not sure he wanted to return to the US, but the French government had other ideas for a 20 something.
Interesting. Opportunity with a possible message for some working in less salubrious situations. Crafty message and straight ahead marketing.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2025
The Future: Humans in Lawn Chairs. Robots Do the Sports Thing
May 8, 2025
Can a fast robot outrun a fast human? Not yet, apparently. MSN’s Interesting Engineering reports, “Humanoid ‘Tiangong Ultra’ Dons Winning Boot in World’s First Human Vs Robot Marathon.” In what appears to be the first event of its kind, a recent 13-mile marathon pitted robots and humans against each other in Beijing. Writer Christopher McFadden reports:
“Around 21 humanoid robots officially competed alongside human marathoners in a 13-mile (21 km) endurance race in Beijing on Saturday, April 19th. According to reports, this is the first time such an event has been held. Competitor robots varied in size, with some as short as 3 feet 9 inches (1.19 m) and others as tall as 5 feet 9 inches (1.8 m). Wheeled robots were officially banned from the race, necessitating that any entrants be able to walk or run similarly to humans.”
The winner was one of the tallest at 5 feet 9 inches and weighed 114 pounds. It took Tiangong Ultra two hours and forty minutes to complete the course. Despite its impressive performance, it lagged considerably behind the first-place human who finished at one hour and two minutes. The robots’ lane of the course was designed to test the machines’ capabilities, mixing inclines and both left and right turns with flat stretches.
See the article for a short video of the race. Most of it features the winner, but there is a brief shot of one smaller, cuter robot. The article continues:
“According to the robot’s creator, Tang Jian, who is also the chief technology officer behind the Beijing Innovation Centre of Human Robotics, the robot’s long legs and onboard software both aided it in its impressive feat. … Jian added that the robot’s battery needed to be changed only three times during the race. As for other robot entrants, many didn’t perform as well. In particular, one robot fell at the starting line and lay on the ground for a few minutes before getting up and joining the race. Yet another crashed into a railing, causing its human operator to fall over.”
Oops. Sadly, those incidents do not appear in the video. The future is clear: Wizards will sit in lawn chairs and watch their robots play sports. I wonder if my robot will go to the gym and exercise for me?
Cynthia Murrell, May 8, 2025
Knowledge Management: Hog Wash or Lipstick on a Pig?
May 8, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby who gets revved up with buzzwords and baloney.
I no longer work at a blue chip consulting company. Heck, I no longer work anywhere. Years ago, I bailed out to work for a company in fly-over country. The zoom-zoom life of the big city tuckered me out. I know, however, when a consulting pitch is released to the world. I spotted one of these “pay us and we will save you” approaches today (April 25, 2025, 5 42 am US Eastern time).
How pretty can the farmer make these pigs? Thanks, OpenAI, good enough, and I know you have no clue about the preparation for a Poland China at a state fair. It does not look like this.
“How Knowledge Mismanagement is Costing Your Company Millions” is an argument presented to spark the sale of professional services. What’s interesting is that instead of beating the big AI/ML (artificial intelligence and machine learning drum set), the authors from an outfit called Bloomfire made “knowledge management” the pointy end of the spear. I was never sure what knowledge management. One of my colleagues did a lot of knowledge management work, but it looked to me like creating an inventory of content, a directory of who in the organization was a go-to source for certain information, and enterprise search.
This marketing essay asserts:
Executives are laser-focused on optimizing their most valuable assets – people, intellectual property, and proprietary technology. But many overlook one asset that has the power to drive revenue, productivity, and innovation: enterprise knowledge.
To me, the idea that one can place a value on knowledge is an important process. My own views of what is called “knowledge value” have been shaped by the work of Taichi Sakaya. This book was published 40 years ago, and it is a useful analysis of how to make money from knowing “stuff”.
This essay makes the argument that an organization that does not know how to get its information act together will not extract the appropriate value from its information. I learned:
Many organizations regard knowledge as an afterthought rather than a business asset that drives financial performance. Knowledge often remains unaccounted for on balance sheets, hidden in siloed systems, and mismanaged to the point of becoming a liability. Redundant, trivial, conflicting, and outdated information can cloud decision making that fails to deliver key results.
The only problem is that “knowledge” loses value when it moves to a system or an individual where it should not be. Let me offer three examples of the fallacy of silo breaking, financial systems, and “mismanaged” paper or digital information.
- A government contract labeled secret by the agency hiring the commercial enterprise. Forget the sharing. Locking up the “information” is essential for protecting national security and for getting paid. The knowledge management is that only authorized personnel know their part of a project. Sharing is not acceptable.
- Financial data, particularly numbers and information about a legal matter or acquisition/divestiture is definitely high value information. The organization should know that talking or leaking these data will result in problems, some little, some medium, and some big time.
- Mismanaged information is a very bad and probably high risk thing. Organizations simply do not have the management bandwidth to establish specific guidelines for data acquisition, manipulation, storage and deletion, access controls that work, and computer expertise to use dumb and smart software to keep those data ponies and information critters under control. The reasons are many and range from accountants who are CEOs to activist investor sock puppets, available money and people, and understanding exactly what has to be done to button up an operation.
Not surprisingly, coming up with a phrase like “enterprise intelligence” may sell some consulting work, but the reality of the datasphere is that whatever an organization does in an engagement running several months or a year will not be permanent. The information system in an organization any size is unstable. How does one make knowledge value from an inherently volatile information environment. Predicting the weather is difficult. Predicting the data ecosystem in an organization is the reason knowledge management as a discipline never went anywhere. Whether it was Harvey Poppel’s paperless office in the 1970s or the wackiness of the system which built a database of people so one could search by what each employee knew, the knowledge management solutions had one winning characteristic: The consultants made money until they didn’t.
The “winners” in knowledge management are big fuzzy outfits; for example, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and a few others. Are these companies into knowledge management? I would say, “Sure because no one knows exactly what it means. When the cost of getting digital information under control is presented, the thirst for knowledge management decreases just a tad. Well, maybe I should say, “Craters.”
None of these outfits “solve” the problem of knowledge management. They sell software and services. Despite the technology available today, a Microsoft Azure SharePoint and custom Web page system leaked secure knowledge from the Israeli military. I would agree that this is indeed knowledge mismanagement, but the problem is related to system complexity, poor staff training, and the security posture of the vendor, which in this case is Microsoft.
The essay concludes with this statement in the form of a question:
The question is: Where does your company’s knowledge fall on the balance sheet?
Will the sales pitch work? Will CEOs ask, “Where is my company’s knowledge value?” Probably. The essay throws around a lot of numbers. It evokes uncertainty, risk, and may fear. It has some clever jargon like knowledge mismanagement.
Net net: Well done. Suitable for praise from a business school faculty member. Is knowledge mismanagement going to delivery knowledge value? Unlikely. Is knowledge (managed or mismanaged) hog wash? It depends on one’s experience with Poland Chinas. Is knowledge (managed or mismanaged lipstick on a pig)? Again it depends on one’s sense of what’s right for the critters. But the goal is to sell consulting, not clean hogs or pretty up pigs.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2025
US Brain Drain Droplet May Presage a Beefier Outflow
May 8, 2025
Believe it or not, no smart software. Just a dumb and skeptical dinobaby.
When I was working on my PhD at the University of Illinois, I noticed that the number of foreign students on campus seemed to go up each year. One year in the luxurious Florida Avenue Residence Hall, most of the students were from farms. The next year, FAR was a mini-United Nations. I did not pay any attention because I was on my way to an actual “real” job at Halliburton Nuclear in Washington, DC.
I heard the phrase “brain drain” over the years. The idea was that people who wanted to work in technical fields would come to the US, get degrees, and then stay to work in US universities or dolphin-loving, humanity-centric outfits like the nuclear industry. The idea was that the US was a magnet: Good schools, many opportunities to work or start a company.
I am not sure that golden age exists any longer. I read about universities becoming research labs for giant companies. I see podcasts with foaming-at-the-mouth academics complaining about [a] the quality of the students, [b] squabbles between different ideological groups, and [c] the lack of tenure opportunities which once seemed to be a sinecure for life just like the US government’s senior executive service.
Now the world works in ever more mysterious ways. As a confused dinobaby, I read news items (unverified, of course) with headlines like this:
Top US Scientist leaves Department Of Energy To Join Sichuan University Amid Rising China Tensions.
The write up reports a “real” news:
Amid escalating US-China tensions, senior scientist Yi Shouliang, formerly with the US Department of Energy, has left the U.S. to assume a new academic role at Sichuan University in China…. Shouliang served as a principal scientist and project leader at the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), where he focused on the Water-Energy Program.
Let’s assume that this academic who had some business interests just missed his family. No big deal.
But what if a certain “home” country was starting to contact certain people and explaining that their future was back in the good old homeland? Could that country systematically explain the facts of life in a way that made the “home” country look more appealing than a big house in Squirrel Hill?
For a few months, I have been writing “China smart, US dumb” blog posts when I spot some news about how wonderfully bright many young Chinese men and women are.
As a dinobaby, my first thought is that China wants its smart people back in the Middle Kingdom. Hopefully more information about this 2025 brain drain from the US to other countries will become publicly available. Plus, one isolated person going against the “You can’t go home again” idea means nothing. Or does it mean something is afoot?
PS. No, I never went back to Chambana to turn in my thesis. I liked working at Halliburton Nuclear more than I liked indexing poetry for the now departed Dr. William Gillis. Sorry, Dr. Gillis, the truth is now out.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2025
IBM: Making the Mainframe Cool Again
May 7, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
I a ZDNet Tech Today article titled “IBM Introduces a Mainframe for AI: The LinuxONE Emperor 5.” Years ago, I had three IBM PC 704s, each with the eight drive SCSI chassis and that wonderful ServeRAID software. I suppose I should tell you, I want a LinuxONE Emperor 5 because the capitalization reminds me of the IBM ServeRAID software. Imagine. A mainframe for artificial intelligence. No wonder that IBM stock looks like a winner in 2025.
The write up says:
IBM’s latest mainframe, the LinuxONE Emperor 5, is not your grandpa’s mainframe
The CPU for this puppy is the IBM Telum II processor. The chip is a seven nanometer item announced in 2021. If you want some information about this, navigate to “IBM’s Newest Chip Is More Than Meets the AI.”
The ZDNet write up says:
Manufactured using Samsung’s 5 nm process technology, Telum II features eight high-performance cores running at 5.5GHz, a 40% increase in on-chip cache capacity (with virtual L3 and L4 caches expanded to 360MB and 2.88GB, respectively), and a dedicated, next-generation on-chip AI accelerator capable of up to 24 trillion operations per second (TOPS) — four times the compute power of its predecessor. The new mainframe also supports the IBM Spyre Accelerator for AI users who want the most power.
The ZDNet write up delivers a bumper crop of IBM buzzwords about security, but there is one question that crossed my mind, “What makes this a mainframe?”
The answer, in my opinion, is IBM marketing. The Emperor should be able to run legacy IBM mainframe applications. However, before placing an order, a customer may want to consider:
- Snapping these machines into a modern cloud or hybrid environment might take a bit of work. Never fear, however, IBM consulting can help with this task.
- The reliance on the Telum CPU to do AI might put the system at a performance disadvantage from solutions like the Nvidia approach
- The security pitch is accurate providing the system is properly configured and set up. Once again, IBM provides the for fee services necessary to allow Z-llenial IT professional to sleep easy on weekends.
- Mainframes in the cloud are time sharing oriented; making these work in a hybrid environment can be an interesting technical challenge. Remember: IBM consulting and engineering services can smooth the bumps in the road.
Net net: Interesting system, surprising marketing, and definitely something that will catch a bean counter’s eye.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2025
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