Beyond hype: Accelerate innovation in a multi era hybrid cloud maze

The HashiCorp® acquisition, for example, is enabling enterprises to fast-track innovation, strengthen security and get more value from the cloud.

Red Hat® AI is helping enterprises accelerate the development and deployment of AI solutions across hybrid cloud environments. Also, with Red Hat InstructLab™ on IBM Cloud®, we are fostering a community-driven approach to AI and language model development through skills and knowledge training.

With gen AI expected to add over 1 billion apps by 2028, enterprises need to be more intentional about their hybrid cloud and workload placement strategy. IBM helps enterprises do that with its hybrid-by-design approach, underpinned by IBM Cloud. IBM analysis of more than 50 client organizations shows that organizations that apply hybrid-by-design principles to IT programs can generate over 3 times higher ROI over five years.

Leading analyst firms recognize our strengths: Gartner has named us a Leader across multiple Magic Quadrants, including Generative AI Specialized Cloud Infrastructure, Generative AI Model Providers, Generative AI Engineering, Cloud AI Developer Services and Data Science and Machine Learning. Omdia, in turn has named IBM a leader in the recently published Omdia Universe: Global Cloud Service Provider, 2025 report.

IBM’s acute focus on 6 key drivers designed for client success underscores this momentum.  

Agentic AI is expected to drive nearly USD 6 trillion in economic value by 2028, accelerating its role in enterprise decision-making, operations and automation.

The integration of AI agents into workflows requires a rethinking of traditional IT processes and system integrations to support the transformation into an agentic enterprise. A foundational element of this shift is the adoption of a standardized approach for connecting agentic AI systems with enterprise software, infrastructure and tools.

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is what enables this approach. A prime example is the IBM Cloud MCP Server, which brings the power of agentic AI to IBM Cloud Management, transforming traditional command-line and API interactions into intuitive, conversational experiences.

AI innovation thrives on collaboration, as evidenced by our expanding ecosystem of agentic AI partners, including ISVs like Millionways, Streebo, Netomi, Tavily, Maven AGI, Beam AI, Symplistic.ai and many more.

“Our experience working on IBM Cloud was phenomenal,” said Professor Flavio du Pin Calmon, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “The capabilities and expertise from IBM helped us to run large models that require large GPU clusters quickly and efficiently, helping us obtain new research results—related to AI safety—in record time.”    

Modern AI breakthroughs are inseparable from the power of GPUs and AI accelerators. IBM provides clients with a spectrum of choice, from a variety of GPUs and AI accelerators  to our own custom AI chips built for large-scale foundation model training.

We recently announced a collaboration with AMD to deliver a massive cluster of MI300X GPUs on IBM Cloud to Zyphra, powering open source training of frontier multimodal AI models. We have also integrated OCP AI (Open Compute Project AI) standards into the IBM Cloud architecture, ensuring interoperability and efficiency for clients building AI systems.

As AI matures, containers are becoming the default launchpad for most gen AI applications. The IBM Cloud hybrid-by-design approach aims to deliver the deployment flexibility that these applications inherently require.

Our Red Hat OpenShift® container runtime provides a consistent foundation for running Kubernetes applications, enabling workload portability without retooling. GPUs can be easily leveraged to support AI workloads with Red Hat OpenShift AI and InstructLab. Also, serverless fleets allow enterprises to run large-scale, compute-intensive AI workloads on a fully managed serverless platform.

“IBM didn’t just serve as a cloud provider but as our partner, working together to improve and evolve. We expect them to continue this approach, catering to customer needs,” said Junya Souda, General Manager, Cloud CoE Department, Kampo System Solutions Co Ltd.  

Over 70% of industry leaders globally agree that hybrid deployment is key to realizing the full potential of a digital transformation. That’s why we have been investing heavily in IBM Power® Virtual Server, an enterprise-grade hybrid platform purpose-built for mission-critical workloads. This July, IBM Power11 was made available across the full server portfolio, including IBM Power Virtual Server, allowing enterprises to gain even more performance and agility. 

Another exciting update is that IBM Cloud is now available as a hyperscaler option for SAP Cloud ERP Private. This option allows clients to modernize to Cloud ERP on a platform that is recognized for delivering the highest levels of availability and security among SAP-certified servers.

Also, with IBM watsonx®, users running SAP Cloud ERP Private on IBM Power Virtual Server can build agents to automate finance, manufacturing, procurement and supply chain workflows that require data from both SAP and non-SAP systems.

“With over 3,500 branches worldwide, it was clear to us that the migration to SAP S/4HANA had to be secure, scalable and future-proof,” said Thomas Jensen, Director SAP & IT Development, JYSK. “IBM Power Virtual Server as a RISE hyperscaler convinced us—with high performance, resilient infrastructure and a strong investment package that supports our business transformation.”

Enterprises today face pressure not only to modernize but also to design their IT environments for scale while reducing dependency on proprietary stacks. IBM helps enterprises accelerate their virtualization and modernization journeys through two complementary pathways:

• Red Hat OpenShift, built on KVM and KubeVirt, provides a modern platform for migrating and managing traditional virtual machines alongside cloud-native applications. It unifies VMs and containers under a truly hybrid, single, scalable and consistent environment across on-premises environments, cloud and edge.
• IBM Cloud Virtual Private Cloud delivers secure, high-performance infrastructure across virtual servers (VSI) and bare metal, whether you’re optimizing costs, modernizing workloads with Red Hat OpenShift or deploying performance-critical applications on dedicated bare metal. IBM Cloud VPC is designed to deliver the flexibility, scalability and AI-driven efficiency to power your hybrid cloud strategy—without compromise.

“Time is of the essence, and you want to burst to the cloud as quickly as possible,” said Paul Cunningham, Senior Vice President & General Manager, System & Verification Group, Cadence. “Several years ago, there was no way to do this. You had to deal with hurdles, either around security or lift and shift or other things. Now, with Cadence OnCloud, we can really do it.”

Enterprises today are increasingly faced with another critical challenge: digital sovereignty requirements are evolving faster than the standards created to govern them. At IBM, we view sovereignty as a strategic posture—designed on a hybrid approach that empowers enterprises to maintain strategic autonomy while leveraging the scale, speed and innovation of trusted global platforms.

Our global footprint keeps expanding to provide clients local access, low latency and certified security. For example, in Europe, our Frankfurt Multi-Zone Region (MZR) will now serve as an SAP Cloud ERP private data center. It addresses the operational sovereignty and data residency needs for RISE with SAP on IBM Power Virtual Server.

Our confidential computing capability has taken a major step forward too. With Intel Trust Domain Extensions (Intel TDX) now live in Frankfurt, EU customers can run sensitive workloads with hardware-based isolation—protecting data even while in use.

Our MZR in Montreal opened in April this year, paving the way to support enterprises in the regulated industries in Canada. In India, IBM and Bharti Airtel, one of India’s leading telecommunications service providers, have entered into a partnership to enable regulated enterprises to scale AI workloads more efficiently. With this collaboration, our presence in India gets bolstered with MZRs in Chennai and Mumbai.

The future of cloud isn’t one-size-fits-all; it’s tailored. It’s about solutions built for your industry’s unique regulations. Consider the financial services sector, where we are helping central banks, regulators and payment operators drive innovation without compromising on security, compliance and resiliency. Key examples include:

• Payments Canada partnering with us to support the delivery and operation of the Real-Time Rail, a made-in-Canada-for-Canada payment system.
• Sirion, a leader in AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM), announcing a collaboration to embed IBM watsonx to redefine CLM.
• Our work on multi-agent orchestration for trade finance with a strong focus on AI governance.
• The IBM Connected Trade Platform hosting embedded partner technologies like Trademo and Rel8ed Analytics to drive supply chain transparency and compliance.
• Utimaco making its Payment HSM as a Service (Payment HSMaaS) available on IBM Cloud, enabling financial institutions, payment service providers and fintechs to bolster their security and meet compliance obligations.

“We are excited that our Payment HSMaaS is available on IBM Cloud, reinforcing our commitment to providing cutting-edge security solutions for the financial sector,” said Håcan Tiwemark, COO at Utimaco. By offering our solution within IBM Cloud, we are providing financial institutions with a deployable, scalable and enhanced payment security framework.”

IBM Cloud for Financial Services® empowers enterprises in the financial services sector to meet their core challenges and build, deploy and scale with confidence in the cloud. At the core of this platform is the IBM Cloud Framework for Financial Services, a strong foundation of operational and security controls built specifically for the financial sector.

Now, IBM is proud to announce the release of IBM Cloud Framework for Financial Services 2.0, a demonstration of our commitment to keeping pace with evolving global regulations, advancing cybersecurity threats and changing operational resilience requirements. This framework serves as a valuable blueprint for other regulated industries as well.

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