IBM has unveiled the Telum Processor, an AI-powered processor that will be central to the company’s next-gen IBM Z and LinuxONE systems.

The Telum Processor is a 7nm microprocessor with 8 cores, delivering over 5 GHz clock speed. The processor features a “dedicated on-chip accelerator for AI inference” to enable AI-driven workloads, especially for the financial sector.

Most significantly, IBM sees the Telum Processor as a way to combat fraud in real-time, thanks to its AI capabilities. All too often, fraud is only detected after the fact, with much of the resulting effort spent mitigating the damage and bringing the responsible parties to justice. Even with systems designed to detect fraud in real-time, those systems’ latency often thwart their effectiveness.

The Telum Processor is designed to leverage its AI capabilities to be a true game-changer.

The new chip features an innovative centralized design, which allows clients to leverage the full power of the AI processor for AI-specific workloads, making it ideal for financial services workloads like fraud detection, loan processing, clearing and settlement of trades, anti-money laundering and risk analysis. With these new innovations, clients will be positioned to enhance existing rules-based fraud detection or use machine learning, accelerate credit approval processes, improve customer service and profitability, identify which trades or transactions may fail, and propose solutions to create a more efficient settlement process.

IBM’s new processor is a major step forward in semiconductor design, and illustrates the potential of widespread AI adoption.