Power play: How IBM Power Systems and Comarch PowerCloud are great tools for any AI project and modern cloud infrastructure

Where is your company’s technology heading? Two increasingly common destinations are the cloud and artificial intelligence (AI). Cloud computing – delivering data, software applications and software services over the Internet – has been one of the key corporate IT trends in the past few decades. Spending on the cloud has surged during the pandemic as companies and consumers have relied on it to home-school, streaming entertainment and working from home.

The global cloud computing market will be worth $1,251.09 billion by 2028, growing by an average of 19.1%, according to a forecast by Grand View Research, a market research and consulting company.

The AI market is also growing fast as businesses and public sector organisations use it to automate tasks, increase efficiency and make smarter decisions. One of the most promising uses of AI is in healthcare. The global market for artificial intelligence in healthcare market is expected to be worth $120.2 billion by 2028, according to Grand View Research. Current or future uses of AI in healthcare include producing more effective drugs and diagnosing illnesses faster and more accurately.

With the help of AI, computers can learn from the documented past, identify patterns and deviations from the norm, and then use that knowledge to carry out tasks that, until very recently, could only be performed by humans.

AI healthcare advances

To make an accurate diagnosis and cure patients, doctors must study patient data thoroughly. This includes test results and body scan images, reading them very carefully, and then diagnosing the likely problem. Checking tests can be laborious.

Doctors make mistakes, just like we all do. This is why, according to a study by BMJ Quality & Safety, one out of 20 adult patients, or about 12 million adults, in the United States receive a misdiagnosis each year.

Comarch, a provider of IT software and services to businesses, has used IBM Power  servers to increase substantially the speed of Comarch machine learning processes and apply them to healthcare – one of our fastest-growing markets.

After receiving IBM hardware for testing, Comarch, which was founded in 1993 and has around 6500 employees, decided to see how the high-performance servers would handle an electrocardiogram (ECG) analysis of the heart’s rhythm and electrical activity compared with machines from another major supplier. The IBM hardware, equipped with Nvidia graphic cards, performed ECG-related calculations nearly twice as fast. Other benefits included processing ESG data from a patient five times quicker when monitored over a two-week period.

However, getting to the cloud and maximising AI’s benefits can sometimes be a bumpy journey – especially if your company has old or “legacy” IT infrastructure.

Powerful and scalable cloud systems

Comarch technology and services enable Power System users to migrate their traditional IT infrastructures to the cloud. It also provides companies with all the benefits of the cloud (flexibility, scalability, ease of use) and the latest virtualisation features.

The Comarch platform, called PowerCloud, is the same cost or cheaper than the traditional hosting of Power Systems, and includes tools that facilitate work. It aims to make the cloud model affordable for a wide range of organisations. It includes automation and built-in know-how to make it easy to use.

Both Power Systems and PowerCloud are great tools for any AI project, in any sector. IBM’s servers are characterised by unparalleled performance in advanced calculations − and can now be easily implemented in companies where the entry barrier is very limited.

Much of AI’s potential can be achieved with PowerCloud, whether it is business optimisation or advanced data analysis. Organisations that use IBMi, AIX or LinuxOnPower systems can migrate their “traditional” systems to PowerCloud and cut their cost of ownership by using a pay-as-you-go pricing system and managed services.

According to Comarch tests, if an organisation migrates from Power-Systems-based IT infrastructure, based on premises, to the cloud, it can reduce IT costs by as much as between 30% and 40%.

Despite these and other impressive results, there are some common myths about Power Systems, including that they are old-fashioned legacy systems (not true, new versions are ideal for hybrid clouds) and that they are very expensive (they aren’t cheap due to their high quality, but the Comarch platform is significantly cheaper than the Power Systems).

Experts in Power Systems are in short supply. Most of the certified specialists are working for IBM. For Power System users, who want to migrate their IT infrastructure to the cloud, outsourcing the task is almost always cheaper than doing it all in house.

It will also probably be more secure as Comarch is an expert in this technology and migration and only uses highly secure data centres. Outsourcing this work will enable your IT department to focus on using technologies, including AI, for competitive advantage.