IBM says AI is insane in the mainframe as z17 sales surge

IBM's leader has trumpeted an AI-on-the-mainframe future as generative AI fills in the COBOL gap left by earlier generations of techies.

Arvind Krishna, IBM chairman, president, and chief executive officer, was speaking as the company turned in full-year results that showed a leap in mainframe sales.

Big Blue turned in revenue from continuing operations of $19.7 billion for the fourth quarter, up 12 percent on the year, yielding net income of $5.6 billion, up 91 percent. For the full year, revenue was up 8 percent to $67.5 billion, while net income jumped 76 percent to $10.6 billion.

Naturally, AI featured heavily as the firm briefed analysts on the numbers. "Our cumulative GenAI book of business now stands at over $12.5 billion, of which Software is more than $2 billion and Consulting is more than $10.5 billion, with both seeing the largest quarterly increase ...