The rapid global development of financial technology, AI technology, and cloud computing is ushering in a new wave of digital transformation. Recently, IBM and PTSC jointly held an Enterprise CIO Leadership Night with the theme “Exploring the Future of Mainframe Cloud and AI Technologies.” The event brought together IBM and PTSC technical experts to analyze critical topics such as digital resilience, generative AI, and cloud solutions, helping businesses address transformative challenges with flexible technical architecture.

Focusing on AI Applications and Enterprise Digital Resilience

PTSC Chairman, Sean Chen, stated that the company is actively integrating software and hardware solutions with technological service capabilities, and has established a close partnership with IBM to focus on multiple application areas such as generative AI and AI platforms. By delving into business scenarios, from knowledge management, marketing strategies to intelligent analytics, the aim is to help enterprises maintain their competitive edge. Jih-ming Chueh, General Manager of the IBM Ecosystem Partner Business Group, shared key insights on AI and digital resilience, emphasizing that digital resilience is not a static state, but a dynamic capability. Enterprises need to maintain operational resilience in the face of external challenges and also take the opportunity to continuously learn and break through the status quo.

Deepening Digital Resilience: From Disaster Recovery to Comprehensive Protection

IBM CTO Shi-yi Zhuang shared the core concept of “Overseas Digital Resilience,” pointing out that digital resilience has evolved from merely being a disaster preparedness concept to a core issue for business operations. With increasing climate change, a higher frequency of human errors, and growing threats from cyber attacks, enterprises must adopt the mindset of “not if, but when” to build protective mechanisms. Practically speaking, this can be achieved by gradually constructing solutions from the three levels of basic backup, disaster recovery, to network restoration. Especially in terms of overseas backup, while some financial institutions have begun backing up data to overseas cloud services, they generally face the challenge of lacking a practical data restoration environment.

To address this, IBM has launched specialized financial cloud services that not only ensure compliance with financial regulations in various countries but also support cloud recovery solutions across diverse platforms from mainframes, AS/400 to x86. He emphasized that enterprises should establish the best protective mechanisms based on their own risk tolerance, and continuously optimize the effectiveness of their digital resilience strategies through regular testing and drills. These practices ensure that businesses can maintain operational resilience when facing various threats, transforming crises into opportunities for growth.

Innovative Storage Platforms: Supporting Multi-Cloud and Cybersecurity Integrated Solutions

Storage platforms play a crucial role in enterprise IT. IBM Business Manager Jun-xian Ko shared three main product pillars of IBM Storage Software: IBM Fusion for hybrid cloud environments that supports multi-cloud applications; Storage Scale product line designed for AI workloads; and the Storage Defender series focusing on cybersecurity protection. He particularly introduced the solution combining IBM Fusion with Red Hat OpenShift, which allows enterprises not only to migrate virtualization platforms but also to achieve application modernization. Jun-xian Ko emphasized that IBM is the only vendor in the market that can provide complete solutions simultaneously in both primary operational and backup environments. Additionally, IBM’s newly launched Data Protect significantly enhances data restoration efficiency in virtual environments through unique algorithms, offering notable performance advantages.

AI-Driven Programming Language Transformation

PTSC’s Technical Vice President, Bird Hsu, introduced the AI-driven technology for converting COBOL to Java. He pointed out that COBOL, as an early commercial programming language, currently faces issues like retiring programmers and incomplete system documentation, with traditional conversion methods only able to perform line-by-line translations, failing to meet modern programming needs. IBM’s solution, IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z, utilizes five steps: Understand, Reflect, Optimize, Transform, and Playback, to achieve structural transformation using AI technology. He emphasized that the system can understand the overall architecture of COBOL programs, break them down into different modules for reorganization, and automatically generate test cases and technical documentation. Through this progressive transformation approach, COBOL and Java programs can coexist and interoperate, allowing businesses to validate and enjoy the results in real-time, effectively reducing the risks and costs associated with system modernization.

Business Applications Trending: AI Avatars

PTSC AI Service Designer, Winnie Pan, introduced the application trends and business value of AI avatars. She mentioned that under the advancing digital wave, AI avatars are gradually changing the current business service models and human-machine interactions. Taking Korea’s KMB Bank as an example, they provide account inquiries, transfers, and other services through AI virtual assistants. The digital counter combines cameras, touch screens, and voice input to offer services like reissuing financial cards and account opening, alleviating manpower needs during peak periods. Furthermore, AI avatars can also be applied in scenarios such as corporate image representation, training, and product launches, supporting multilingual conversion capabilities. On the technical architecture side, it integrates front-end devices, ensures data security isolation in the middle layer, and connects back-end APIs, supporting both cloud and on-premises deployment while complying with financial regulations, providing complete consulting and implementation services for enterprises.

AI technology and cloud computing have become key forces driving digital transformation in enterprises. PTSC and IBM will continue to assist financial industry players in building more resilient operational models through flexible technical architectures and innovative solutions, seizing competitive advantages in the rapidly changing digital era and creating a new future in financial technology.

Article source: Digitimes