At the Hot Chips 2020 conference over the weekend, IBM unveiled the next generation of its IBM POWER CPU family. Called the IBM POWER10, it will offer a platform to meet the unique needs of enterprise hybrid cloud computing, said the company in an official press release. The IBM POWER10 processor comes with a 7nm form factor that the company claims will offer up to 3x greater energy efficiency, workload capacity and container density than the IBM POWER9 processor.
The chip also supports multi-Petabyte memory clusters, thanks to a new technology called Memory Inception. According to IBM, the new technology will 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. It will also bring new hardware-enabled security capabilities, including transparent memory encryption to support end-to-end security.
The IBM POWER10 also comes with new core architectures with an “embedded Matrix Math Accelerator”. According to IBM, it will provide 10x, 15x and 20x faster AI inference for FP32, BFloat16 and INT8 calculations per socket, respectively, when compared to the IBM POWER9. The enhanced capabilities would help infuse AI into business applications and drive greater insights, the company said.
The Power10 is IBM’s first commercialized 7nm processor that the company says is built specifically for the bybrid cloud era. “It includes breakthrough new security features including, memory inception to improve cloud capacity and delivers faster with 4x additional encryption engines for today’s toughest standards and future encryption standards like quantum-safe cryptography, and new enhancements to container security”, the company said. Systems using the IBM POWER10 will be available in the second half of 2021.
