Partner POV | Meet the IBM Power11 Family: Autonomous IT Built for the AI Era

Article written by Brandon Pederson, IBM i and Power Product Marketing Manager, IBM. 

The IBM® Power11 server family is here. Power11 has built upon the long lineage of Power® processor-based technology, trusted by clients around the globe to run business-critical applications and workloads in regulated industries such as healthcare, banking, financial services, telecommunications, government, and more. Now with the AI era fully upon us, we redesigned Power11 up and down the entire stack to deliver always-on IT with consistency across the hybrid cloud to help our clients maintain competitiveness in this new era. With Power11, clients can expect new innovations in three main pillars:

Ensure Always-On IT

The Power11 family provides clients with a new solution and capabilities to ensure always-on IT in industries where downtime is not an option. IT teams often spend a lot of time managing maintenance, including planning for windows of downtime that align with the priorities of the business. With Power11 processor-based servers, clients can expect zero planned downtime for system maintenance through new technologies such as autonomous patching and the automated movement of workloads with Live Partition Mobility. IBM Power Cyber Vault, an integrated cyber resiliency solution consisting of Power11 processor-based servers, IBM FlashSystem® or DS8000® storage, software, and services from IBM Technology Expert Labs, can detect and respond to ransomware threats in less than a minute, enabling protection against cyberattacks and preventing financial damage to the business.

Boost Outputs and Save Time

Power11 introduces the concept of Resource Groups in the firmware to maximize system utilization and increase performance of workloads efficiently. To further maximize efficiency, Power11 processor-based servers have a new Energy Efficient mode. This new smart energy option automatically schedules workloads to run at the lowest wattage possible to decrease energy costs and reduce environmental impact, helping meet corporate and federal sustainability objectives. Using the new Energy Efficient mode, clients can get up to 28% better energy efficiency on Power11 processor-based servers compared to Maximum Performance mode.  Power11 processor-based servers also have automated data collection capabilities that send data directly to IBM Technology Lifecycle Services (TLS) for faster error resolution.

Flex Seamlessly to Business Needs

The Power11 portfolio provides the flexibility clients need to scale up and down to meet new business demands and opportunities where they are. Power11 processor-based servers will be available in the public cloud on Power Virtual Server the same day as the on-premise hardware, ensuring a consistent hybrid cloud user experience across public and private environments. The ecosystem of Red Hat and open source solutions available on Power is expanding to build new applications and modernize existing ones. Power11 processor-based servers are AI-era ready with on-chip AI acceleration available today to run large and small language models on the same system that data is living, reducing latency and increasing inferencing performance without the added cost and complexity of GPUs. With the Power S1122, clients can reduce latency by up to 58% for AI inferencing compared to the Power S1022.

IBM Power E1180

The IBM Power E1180 is a full-rack server engineered for the largest and most complex business-critical workloads. It harnesses up to 256 Power11 cores and 64 TB of DDR5 memory, and runs IBM® AIX®, IBM i, and Linux. The Power E1180 delivers continuous availability, advanced cyber resilience, and enterprise-grade AI acceleration. The scalability of the Power E1180 helps streamline operations and manage growing data demands with confidence.

The Power E1180 has 10% more rPerf per watt compared to the Power E1080 for increased performance of data-intensive workloads such as SAP HANA. Using the new Energy Efficient mode compared to Maximum Performance mode on Power E1180, clients can get 22% better server efficiency, ideal for reducing the environmental footprint of large enterprise data centers. By leveraging Resource Groups for shared processor configurations on Power E1180, clients can further increase efficiency with up to 25% improvement in per core performance.

IBM Power E1150

The IBM Power E1150 is a 4U server built for memory- and data-intensive workloads in midsize companies to the largest enterprises in the world. It runs AIX and Linux and has up to 120 Power11 cores and 16 TB of DDR5 memory to support multiple business-critical workloads in hybrid cloud environments. The Power E1150 has a space-conscious design that helps reduce costs, simplify operations, and scale workloads without over-provisioning, making it ideal for organizations modernizing infrastructure while focusing on ROI and agility. 

As the Power E1150 is a popular choice for running transactional database workloads, improving both performance and efficiency for Power11 was critical. The Power E1150 delivers a 55% improvement in per core database performance with a 25% better transactional response time compared to the Power E950. Compared to Power10, the E1150 has 20% more rPerf per watt over the E1050 to further increase performance of these database workloads while maintaining efficiency. Using the new Energy Efficient mode on the Power E1150, clients will also see 28% better energy efficiency compared to Maximum Performance mode. 

IBM Power S1124

The IBM Power S1124 is a 4U server designed for enterprises and regional data centers that need strong compute, memory, and hybrid cloud flexibility. It runs AIX, IBM i, and Linux, and has up to 60 Power11 cores and 8 TB of DDR5 memory to power a variety of business-critical workloads. The Power S1124 enables solid business continuity, seamless scalability, operational efficiency, and modern workload management without adding IT complexity for organizations.

The Power11 processor-based scale-out portfolio has no shortage of performance and efficiency improvements either. Energy Efficient mode is also available on the Power S1124 and Power S1122, and on the Power S1124 clients will see an improvement in energy efficiency of 26% compared to Maximum Performance mode. The Power S1124 also has 22% more rPerf per watt compared to the Power S1024 to further increase performance of business-critical workloads such as IBM i-based applications, Oracle databases, and more.

IBM Power S1122

The IBM Power S1122 is a dense 2U rack server designed for small to midsized businesses, remote branches, and space-constrained environments. It runs AIX, IBM i, and Linux, and has up to 60 Power11 cores and 4 TB of DDR5 memory. The Power S1122 is built for cost-efficiency, hybrid cloud flexibility, and simplified management. It helps organizations run mixed workloads, scale easily, and modernize infrastructure without complex replatforming or rewriting of business-critical applications. 

The Power S1122, along with the Power E1180, will also be available as an option on Power Virtual Server for a consistent user experience across on-premise and public cloud. Energy Efficient mode is also available on the Power S1122, with 13% better energy efficiency compared to Maximum Performance mode. The Power S1122 has up to 20 more Power11 cores available on the system compared to a similar Power10 processor-based S1022. This leads to better system utilization and performance, with 37% more rPerf per watt on the Power S1122 compared to the Power S1022. For AI inferencing, clients can get up to 6.9X better performance per dollar with the Power S1122 compared to the Power S1022.

IBM Power Virtual Server

IBM Power Virtual Server is a cloud-based infrastructure solution that brings the performance and reliability of Power to a flexible and scalable virtual environment. It allows businesses to run AIX, IBM i, and Linux workloads in the cloud without having to refactor applications, making it ideal for hybrid cloud strategies and architectures. With seamless integration into the broader IBM Cloud® ecosystem, Power Virtual Server provides secure, high-performance compute capacity alongside automation, backup, and disaster recovery capabilities. It is designed for enterprises looking to modernize their infrastructure, improve operational efficiency, and extend existing on-premise Power environments into the cloud to take advantage of pay-as-you-use billing to manage costs.

For the first time ever, Power11 processor-based servers will be available in the cloud on Power Virtual Server at the same time as General Availability of the on-premise hardware. Power Virtual Server is also now certified as an SAP RISE Hyperscaler on IBM Cloud. With Power11 processor-based servers now on the cloud in Power Virtual Server, performance and agility take another leap forward. And because IBM fully manages the infrastructure, clients can simplify operations and focus on driving outcomes rather than maintaining hardware. 

GA is July 25, 2025

The Power E1180, Power E1150, Power S1124, and Power S1122 will be Generally Available on Friday, July 25th, as well as Power11 processor-based servers in the cloud on Power Virtual Server. Keep an eye on the portfolio even after General Availability, as continuous new updates will be rolled out throughout the rest of the year and beyond. As we continue on our journey into the AI era, the team will make IBM® watsonx.data® available on Power by the end of the year to help our clients access, transform, and manage sensitive enterprise data at scale for analytics. The IBM Spyre™ Accelerator for off-chip AI acceleration is expected to be available later this year for Power as well. IBM watsonx Code Assistant™ for i will also be available by the end of the year to help developers modernize business-critical RPG applications with greater ease and productivity.