IBM rolled out the Power11 enterprise server platform on July 8, 2025, targeting a long-standing issue in enterprise computing: running AI tasks without undermining the dependability demanded by critical applications. Many organizations now maintain a patchwork of specialized AI processors and traditional servers. IBM is betting that a unified system will ease management and cut complexity.
Power11 machines are engineered to deliver "99.9999% uptime", translating to under 32 seconds of unplanned downtime each year. IBM says this marks “the most resilient server in the history of the IBM Power platform.” For operations that handle payments, electronic health records or other high-stakes workloads, continuous service can play a critical role in preventing service disruptions and revenue loss.
A zero-planned downtime feature lets administrators perform maintenance, updates and security patches. Applications remain online throughout those tasks. This design eliminates maintenance windows that require systems to go offline for scheduled work.
Each Power11 chip includes on-board AI inference acceleration, enabling trained models to produce insights or recommendations in real time. AI inference refers to the execution of trained neural network models on live data streams, delivering predictions or classification results without external accelerators. During the fourth quarter of 2025, IBM will introduce the Spyre Accelerator, a custom co-processor optimized for heavy AI workloads. That option will let users mix data analytics and legacy tasks on the same host without adding separate racks or devices.
Performance benchmarks point to significant gains over earlier Power series servers. Core throughput increases up to 55% compared with Power9 hardware. System capacity improves by as much as 45% above Power10 platforms, according to IBM’s own tests. Power11 offers twice the performance per watt of comparable x86 systems. Switching on Energy Efficient Mode lifts server efficiency by up to 28% relative to Maximum Performance Mode.
Security measures are built in at the platform level. The integrated IBM Power Cyber Vault solution can react in under a minute once ransomware activity is spotted. Operators set a custom schedule for capturing immutable data snapshots, which the system then stores and validates to block corruption or encryption attacks.
Protection extends to cryptographic safeguards. IBM has adopted NIST-approved quantum-safe cryptography, shielding data from so-called “harvest-now, decrypt-later” threats that capture traffic today for future decryption attempts. This protection layer is aimed at guarding long-term archives and sensitive records against advances in quantum computing that threaten existing encryption methods.
Financial institutions, healthcare providers, retailers and government agencies have long depended on Power servers for workloads that cannot afford downtime. Power11 arrives in entry-level, midrange and high-end configurations. Customers who prefer cloud deployment can select IBM Power Virtual Server on IBM Cloud. Integration with Red Hat OpenShift AI and other open-source frameworks remains available. The integration with Red Hat OpenShift AI highlights IBM’s focus on container-based AI workflows for large-scale deployments. This tiered lineup caters to both firms new to AI-ready infrastructure and long-time Power customers.
Pricing details and total cost of ownership figures have not been released, leaving some CIOs cautious until numbers and performance can be verified in real-world conditions.
General availability for Power11 begins on July 25, 2025. Shipments of the Spyre Accelerator will start in the fourth quarter. IBM plans to support watsonx.data, its hybrid data lakehouse solution, on this server family by year-end 2025.
The enterprise server market shows rising demand for systems that handle both conventional workloads and AI at scale. With Power11, IBM wraps high availability and inference acceleration into a single offering. Field trials and customer reports will determine if this combined solution becomes an industry standard.