IBM leaned into its hybrid-cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) strategies in the second quarter to offer its partners and clients technical capabilities to improve innovation, productivity and scale their organizations.

“Hybrid-cloud is about offering clients a platform that can straddle multiple public cloud, private clouds, and on-premise properties, all the way to the edge,” IBM Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said during Monday’s Q2 earnings call.

Financial institutions including Barclays, Citi and PNC were among more than 250 clients that implemented IBM’s hybrid-cloud capabilities in Q2 “to unlock more business value and meet rapidly changing client demands,” Krishna said, noting the tech giant currently counts more than 4,000 hybrid-cloud customers.

“Those who adopt our platform tend to consume more of our solutions across software, consulting and infrastructure,” he said.

To support its hybrid-cloud, IBM launched the Z16 mainframe in April, a technology that offers a real-time AI accelerator into its IBM Telum processor.

The Z16 system, which became generally available in Q2, “is designed for cloud-native development, server security resilience, quantum-safe encryption and includes an on-chip accelerator which allows clients to reduce fraud within real-time transactions,” Krishna said.

The launch of Z16 improved the company’s infrastructure performance, leading to a 25% year-over-year increase in revenue to $4.2 billion, according to IBM’s earnings presentation. The tech giant’s hybrid infrastructure performance grew 41% YoY, accounting for $2.8 billion in revenue.

Meanwhile, IBM added Amazon Web Services as a technology partner in Q2 to enhance automation, data and AI, security and sustainability, according to the earnings call. The company also acquired cybersecurity provider Randori, Jim Kavanaugh, chief financial officer at IBM, said on the call.

Looking ahead, IBM plans to continue investing in technology talent, service and product offerings, and go-to-market strategies as “IT has become a high priority on our company’s budget,” Krishna added.

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