Input Stories

Mainframe computers—those large data processors that have been used by big companies since the 1950s—have gained a new purpose thanks to AI (The Wall Street Journal, subscription).

What’s going on: “Banks, insurance providers and airlines are a few of the big industries that still rely on the mainframe for high-speed data processing. And now, some are looking to apply AI to their transaction data at the hardware source, rather than in the cloud.”

How it works: At one large computer company, the “latest mainframe can immediately return results from AI models.”

• Its on-system processor can help insurance companies predict which products will sell to clients. The next version is expected to be able to use traditional AI capabilities and the kind of large language models behind generative AI.
• At another business, an IT services software firm, “clients want to run AI on [mainframes], although such uses likely won’t materialize until next year.”

Moving mainframe to the cloud? Companies may not have to choose between mainframes and the cloud for much longer.

• One startup is trying to use its own AI to help it rewrite mainframe applications and move them over to the cloud.