IBM’s new mainframe can comb through billions of transactions a day

Even after a few decades, IBM continues to release new mainframe computers, the newest of which is the Z13, which the company unveiled on Tuesday. IBM claims that the Z13, which is the company’s first new mainframe in three years, will help customers by detecting more fraud in real time by tearing through billions of mobile transactions every day. 

IBM took the wraps off a new mainframe computer on Tuesday, promising it will help customers to detect more fraud in real time and plow through billions of transactions generated each day by smartphones and tablets. The z13 is IBM’s first new mainframe in almost three years, and it shows the company continuing to invest in a product that’s still relied upon heavily by banks, airlines and other big firms, while logging steadily lower sales each year. The z13 gets a new processor design, faster I/O and the ability to address up to 10TB of memory—three times as much as its predecessor. It can house up to 141 processor units in a single system and run as many as 8,000 virtual servers, the company says.