IBM is collaborating with Arm on a new processor for its mainframes. It will support two architectures simultaneously.
IBM is working on a processor that fully supports the ARM architecture in addition to its own Z ecosystem. The company announced this at Hot Chips 2026. IBM is partnering with Arm for this project.
Unique support
The new processor will support z/OS and Linux on ARM at the same time. Customers will therefore be able to run workloads on the same machine or core, whether they are compiled for ARM or for IBM’s own architecture.
This is a first. While it is not unusual for workloads from one architecture (for example, x86) to run on another (ARM), this typically happens through virtualization of the foreign architecture. That virtualization layer then brings an efficiency dip with it. By supporting two architectures natively, IBM and Arm now want to prevent that.
Confirmation of the chip’s arrival does not come as a surprise. In April, IBM and Arm already announced that they had set up a collaboration with exactly this goal.
Regulated and critical niche
The merging of the ecosystems is highly relevant. Although IBM’s Z architecture is not as widespread, it plays a major role in an important niche. After all, IBM’s mainframes are the foundation upon which many financial services are built.
By now opening IBM Z and the associated LinuxOne operating system to ARM, and doing so via hardware-based support, IBM is unlocking its own closed ecosystem. This is good news for customers who typically operate in highly regulated environments and cannot or do not want to simply migrate to a new architecture.
IBM remains sparing with information at this stage of development. For instance, the new chip does not yet have an official name. However, IBM did reveal that the new chip will be a powerhouse. The company is aiming for a 2 nm process for manufacturing. The processor is expected to feature eleven performance-oriented computing cores, each capable of handling a clock speed of 5.7 GHz. As with its previous chips, IBM will provide specialized I/O and AI acceleration.