International Business Machines Corp.: Is 2026 guidance de-risked for now?

Research evidence excerpt

International Business Machines Corp.: Is 2026 guidance de-risked for now?

was driven by application modernization, data transformation and cybersecurity

services. Gen AI represented about 50% of signings and more than 30% of backlog.

Segment margins expanded 160bps y/y on productivity actions

Infrastructure: targeting +LSD% cc y/y growth in F26

Infrastructure rev declined 7% y/y cc to $3.8bn in 2Q26, as pronounced IBM Z cyclicality

more than offset record growth in Distributed Infrastructure. Hybrid Infrastructure

revenue decreased 10% y/y (cc), with IBM Z down 42% y/y against a difficult comp

following ~70% y/y growth in the prior year launch quarter.

While some moderation is normal in the fifth quarter of a mainframe cycle, management

acknowledged that Z performance was below expectations. The z17 refresh remains the

strongest in IBM’s reported history at nearly 130% program-to-program vs. z16,

representing ~$1bn more cumulative mainframe revenue, with 85% of installed MIPS

capacity stable or growing. Mgmt. sees no evidence of customers migrating workloads

off the platform.

IBM also pointed to an emerging AI-driven capacity opportunity, with nearly 50% of z17

customers investing in the Spyre Accelerator, customers deploying watsonx Code

Assistant for Z growing MIPS capacity roughly three times faster than non-adopters, and

z17 customers adding AI, analytics and Linux-based workloads closer to sensitive

enterprise data.

Distributed Infrastructure was the clear upside, growing a record 37% y/y cc as

customers prioritized servers, storage and memory amid supply constraints and

anticipated price increases. Power11 is gaining momentum around resiliency,

performance and Linux modernization, while IBM cited storage share gains across Flash,