IBM Cloud Deal Provides Boost as Mainframe Business Struggles
IBM's mainframe business has been struggling, with revenue dropping 42% in July. However, the company is pinning its hopes on a $240 million deal with Together AI to build a large-scale inference cluster within its cloud.
The multi-year agreement will provide IBM with a major boost to its hybrid-cloud arm, which has been overshadowed by the mainframe unit's decline. The services are set to launch in Q1 2027.
The deal is not an isolated move; IBM has been making significant strides in other areas as well. At the Hot Chips conference, it unveiled a dual-architecture mainframe processor that can run IBM Z and Arm-native Linux workloads simultaneously.
The quantum division also made progress with the successful connection of two modular cryogenic systems within a shared environment.