• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • IBM Licenses Power8 Chips To Chinese Startup

    January 27, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    Ahead of its reporting of disappointing system sales last week and the announcement that it was selling off its X86 server business to Lenovo, IBM also announced a new partnership in China that will see a startup funded by a provincial government and other industrial players make its own variants of the Power processors for servers.

    The startup, called Suzhou PowerCore, is a sister company to an existing Power chip licensee called China Core, or C*Core for short. The companies share the same CEO, Jiang Zheng, but they will operate separately. Suzhou PowerCore has joined IBM’s OpenPower Consortium and is the first licensee of the intellectual property behind the Power8 processors, which IBM had early production samples of last summer and which are expected to be launched in new systems by the middle of this year.

    The goal, explains Brad McCredie, a vice president in the Systems and Technology Group who is spearheading the OpenPower Consortium effort, is for Suzhou PowerCore to put together a chip development team and make customizations of the Power8 design that make it more suitable for servers and storage in the Chinese market. I suspect this is more of a teaching exercise than anything else, but it could also be a precursor to a longer and stronger partnership between IBM and China over Power-based technologies. At first, says McCredie, Suzhou PowerCore will make modest tweaks to the Power8 chips and use IBM’s foundry in East Fishkill, New York to make its variants of the Power8 chip. Over the longer term, Suzhou PowerCore will make more substantial tweaks and will also have the ability to have its variants run through other foundries. This will take years. But China is dead serious about making chips, and has variants of Sparc, Alpha, and MIPS chips in development for various systems and consumer devices already.

    To my way of thinking, IBM is trying to figure out how its design tools can be fitted to other foundries and Suzhou PowerCore is helping do that work by virtue of enlightened self-interest. With Tyan a member of the consortium that has committed to making Power motherboards and Suzhow PowerCore committing to making future Power chips, this could be a long-term exit strategy in the making for IBM to leave the Power Systems manufacturing business. But admittedly I could be seeing plans and schemes that are not there. IBM is clearly not interested in making servers that don’t make money, and is happy to give the business to someone else that can make money from it. We know that from the sales of the low-end printer, memory, disk drive, PC, high-end printer, and now X86 server businesses, after all.

    It could turn out that IBM stays in the Power chip game out to Power8+ and Power9 and is simply trying to expand the market. It seems clear that IBM is having trouble selling Power Systems iron in China now, so this is one way to capitalize on the server opportunity there.

    The hope is that whatever Suzhou PowerCore does will be compatible with IBM i. Maybe we can get the iSeries brand fired up and make our own line? Stranger things have happened. . . .

    RELATED STORIES

    Power Systems Sales Power Down In The Fourth Quarter

    New Year’s High Def, Most Def

    All Your IBM i Base Are Belong To Us

    IBM i Installed Base Dominated By Vintage Iron

    Big Blue Gives A Solid Installed Base Number For IBM i

    Reader Feedback On Big Blue Gives A Solid Installed Base Number

    Power8 Offers Big Blue And IBM i A Clean Slate

    Power8 And The Potential Oomph In Midrange And Big Boxes

    IBM Aims NextScale Hyperscale Boxes At Clouds–And Possibly Power8

    Power8 Processor Packs A Twelve-Core Punch–And Then Some

    IBM To Divulge Power8 Processor Secrets At Hot Chips

    IBM Forms OpenPower Consortium, Breathes New Life Into Power

    IBM Names New GMs For Power Systems And System z

    PureSystems Sales Break 6,000, And IBM Names New GM

    What Is IBM Going To Do With Its Systems Business?

    Systems And Strategy Execs Switch Roles At Big Blue

    Mad Dog 21/21: Think Or Quit

    Power Systems Sales Stalled–Again–By Power7+ Rollout

    Will Big Blue Deep Six Its X86 Server Biz?

    Server Manufacturing Moved Out Of Rochester, Minnesota

    IBM Rochester Gets A Piece Of the PureSystems Action

    A Closer Look At The Flex System Iron

    IBM Launches Hybrid, Flexible Systems Into The Data Center

    IBM Reorganization Tucks Systems Under Software

    IBM’s Plan for an Adjacent, Custom Systems Market

    The IBM Systems Agenda: iB(M)

    international Business (machines)



                         Post this story to del.icio.us
                   Post this story to Digg
        Post this story to Slashdot

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags:

    Sponsored by
    Raz-Lee Security

    Protect Your IBM i and/or AIX Servers with a Free Virus Scan

    Cyber threats are a reality for every platform, including IBM i and AIX servers. No system is immune, and the best defense is prompt detection and removal of viruses to prevent costly damage. Regulatory standards across industries mandate antivirus protection – ensure your systems are compliant and secure.

    Get My Free Virus Scan

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Attunity Buys Hayes for SAP Data Chops The Case Of The Late Night FSM Explorer

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Volume 24, Number 3 -- January 27, 2014
THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY:

ProData Computer Services
SEQUEL Software
Profound Logic Software
System i Developer
Shield Advanced Solutions

Table of Contents

  • What The System x Selloff Means To IBM i Shops
  • RPG OA: Open Opportunity, Open To Interpretation
  • Ricoh Gets Into MSP Business With mindSHIFT Buy
  • As I See It: MLK And The NSA
  • Power Systems Sales Power Down In The Fourth Quarter
  • Reader Feedback: Finding The i In The Power Ecosystem And Strategy
  • IBM Licenses Power8 Chips To Chinese Startup
  • Cognitive Computing Is Knocking On The Door
  • OCEAN User Group Milestone: 25 Years of Educational Endurance
  • CIOs To Feel The Pinch Again In 2014

Content archive

  • The Four Hundred
  • Four Hundred Stuff
  • Four Hundred Guru

Recent Posts

  • POWERUp 2025 –Your Source For IBM i 7.6 Information
  • Maxava Consulting Services Does More Than HA/DR Project Management – A Lot More
  • Guru: Creating An SQL Stored Procedure That Returns A Result Set
  • As I See It: At Any Cost
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 19
  • IBM Unveils Manzan, A New Open Source Event Monitor For IBM i
  • Say Goodbye To Downtime: Update Your Database Without Taking Your Business Offline
  • i-Rays Brings Observability To IBM i Performance Problems
  • Another Non-TR “Technology Refresh” Happens With IBM i TR6
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 18

Subscribe

To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

Pages

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Contributors
  • Four Hundred Monitor
  • IBM i PTF Guide
  • Media Kit
  • Subscribe

Search

Copyright © 2025 IT Jungle