Power11 Lineup Welcomes Entry-Level S1112
The newest member of the Power11 family comes with up to 10 cores, in rack-mounted and deskside tower configurations
IBM is welcoming its newest, smallest member to the Power11 family with the introduction of the entry-level S1112.
The new Power11 server aims to extend the platform’s AI-forward, enterprise-class capabilities to remote or space-constrained locations. “It’s a single-socket server designed for edge computing and small to medium IBM i, AIX or Linux workloads,” Bargav Balakrishan, head of product for IBM Power, said in a July 15 webinar introducing the new system.
The new server, expected to be generally available (GA) July 24, comes in four- or 10-core modules with up to 512 GB memory, packaged in either a 2U 19-inch rack drawer or desk-side tower.
These options allow for enhanced deployment flexibility, enabling AI workloads to be processed on-premises, next to the data source, Balakrishan noted. “In the AI era, innovation cannot be constrained by where workloads run,” he said. “ … It’s ideal for distributed environments or processing data at the source.”
How the S1112 Stacks Up
The S1112 provides 2x improved core performance—along with 69% greater efficiency—over the smallest server of the Power9 generation, S914, and 3x over the Power S814, according to IBM. This enables footprint consolidation and reduced operating costs as the S1112 replaces those older systems. Additionally, IBM says the Power11 architecture delivers twice the performance per watt than x86-based servers.
The new offering slots into the P05 IBM i software pricing tier, which is capped at four cores and 64 GB of memory. “So you can have four virtual processors that run your IBM i workload. And then if you bought the 10-core version, you can utilize those for AIX and Linux,” Kris Whitney, IBM i chief engineer, said during a webinar covering a range of IBM i topics.
This arrangement, Whitney said, is ideal for modern use cases such as running a “Linux sidecar” for AI inference while reaching into core IBM i workloads. Supporting those AI workloads is the Power11 processor’s on-chip Matrix Math Accelerator (MMA) and several new tools.
An Assist From New Automation Tools
On top of the recently introduced IBM Bob Premium Package for i, those tools include IBM Power Autonomous Operations (Sept. 23 GA), an AI-driven control plane designed to monitor, optimize and protect mission-critical environments.
“It combines deep Power telemetry, AI-powered analytics, automation, and operational workflows into a unified experience that helps IT teams reduce complexity, improve resiliency, and increase productivity,” Brandon Pederson, senior IBM i product manager, wrote in a product announcement blog.
To help enterprises deploy AI agents in those environments, IBM is also introducing Agentic Engine for IBM i (in private preview), an enablement layer that helps developers build agents using their preferred coding tools and run them close to DB2 for i data. “The engine provides the runtime, IBM i Knowledge Pack, observability, extensibility, MCP server and foundational agents that help teams build trusted agents for IBM i without starting from scratch,” Pederson wrote.
S1112 joins a Power11 lineup that was introduced last year. That initial lineup ranged from the S1122, which comes with up to 60 Power11 cores and 4 TB of DDR5 memory, to the E1180, with up to 256 cores and 64 TB DDR5 memory.