IBM Malaysia Sdn Bhd has unveiled the IBM z16 mainframe, its next-generation system designed to help prevent fraud which it describes as “the industry’s first quantum-safe system”.
“The IBM z16 uniquely brings together artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing, via our Telum Processor with highly secured and reliable high-volume transaction processing,” IBM Z worldwide vice president Jose Castano told a media conference held in Kuala Lumpur.
“For the first time, banks can analyse for fraud during transactions on a massive scale; the IBM z16 can process 300 billion inference requests per day with just one millisecond of latency or even before the transaction completes.”
The system is designed to enable clients to analyse real-time transactions for mission-critical workloads such as credit card, healthcare and financial transactions. It has also been specifically equipped to protect against near-future threats that might be used to crack today’s encryption technologies.
IBM Malaysia managing director and technology leader Catherine Lian said that IBM innovations which encompass the IBM z16 have formed the technology backbone of the global economy for decades.
“Today’s modern IBM mainframe is central to hybrid cloud environments, valued by 45 of the world’s top 50 banks, eight of the top 10 insurers, seven of the top 10 global retailers, and eight out of the top 10 telcos as a highly secured platform for running their most mission critical workloads,” she pointed out.
Lian was citing a report by research and advisory firm Celent which states that the IBM zSystems run 70% of global transactions on a value basis.
She further revealed that 95% of the Malaysian financial services industry is powered by the IBM mainframe.
“The mission of IBM is to modernise the hybrid cloud and our focus is to assist customers to leverage the investments in their existing IT infrastructure and applications seamlessly to the hybrid cloud,” she noted.
“Now with IBM z16 innovations, our clients can increase decision velocity with inferencing right where their mission critical data lives. This (development) opens up tremendous opportunities to change the game in their respective industries so they will be positioned to deliver better customer experiences and more powerful business outcomes.”
Despite the pandemic, IBM has over the past two years seen significant sales growth in Asia Pacific with 20 new customers adopting the Z mainframes, according to IBM Asia Pacific director (Z & cognitive system, technology) Francis Goh.
“4Q 2021 was IBM’s best quarter in Asia Pacific since 2016,” he said, adding that this was the reflection of the overall momentum for IBM. – April 26, 2022
