IBM has announced it is bringing Python data science platform Anaconda to Linux on IBM Z & LinuxONE.

Anaconda is the leading Python data science platform, with some 25 million users relying on the platform for machine learning, data science, predictive analytics and more.

IBM is bringing Anaconda to IBM Z and LinuxONE, making it easy for programmers and data scientist to build and run their AI and analytics apps where their data already resides. According to research commissioned by IBM, 90% of respondents cited this as an important factor.

Barry Baker, VP of Product Management for IBM Z & LinuxONE, made the announcement in a blog post.

Data scientists who already know and love Anaconda can now expand their open-source data science experience to include IBM Z & LinuxONE, while continuing to work with their favorite tools and frameworks like conda, XGBoost and SciKit-Learn. This expands and enables choice in AI frameworks and tooling for end-to-end data science directly on the platform, including development, training, testing and production. Data scientists can benefit from the security capabilities, high availability and scalability of the IBM Z & LinuxONE platforms when implementing AI deployments targeting time-sensitive workloads or transactions when they are taking place. Anaconda runs natively on Linux on IBM Z, and through z/OS Container Extensions (zCX) on z/OS, the solution brings open-source data science tools close to key workloads, leveraging the data gravity of the Z and LinuxONE platforms.