Talsco Weekly: AI transforms traditional ERP landscape

Welcome to another edition of Talsco Weekly

IBM i Brief: 💰 IBM adjusts global pricing again. 🔍 IBM Power11: Evolution with AI Focus.
AI: 🔄 What exactly is the MPC Protocol? 🚀 Everyone is talking about MCPs - It has gone viral.
Career: 💼 Technical debt threatens IBM i careers.
Development: 💻 RPGLE gets smart coding upgrades. 👨‍💻 AI Code Intelligence for IBM i Modernization.
ERP: 🏢 AI transforms traditional ERP landscape.
Trends: 🚀 AI datacenters are heading to space.

IBM i Brief

Power Systems and Storage prices will increase in Japan (3.5%), India (2.1%), Philippines (1.4%), Hong Kong (1.2%), and New Zealand (0.6%) starting October 1, due to currency exchange fluctuations. This comes just months after IBM cut prices in these same countries by 1-9.9%. The adjustments affect Power9 and Power10 systems plus all storage products. Meanwhile, IBM is also withdrawing certain cryptographic co-processors in China and phasing out DDR4 memory for several Power systems by January 2026.

🔍 IBM Power11: Evolution with AI Focus

At Hot Chips 2025, IBM presented Power11 as an evolutionary update to its successful Power10 platform, enhancing AI capabilities while refining system architecture. Key features include:

Improved AI acceleration built directly into processor cores, expanding on Power10's matrix multiplication engine
Continued use of Samsung's 7nm technology with focus on speed over density
Advanced OMI Memory Architecture supporting up to 8TB of DDR5 memory with >1TB/second bandwidth
Better support for external AI accelerators including IBM's Spyre

IBM maintains its strategy of fewer but larger cores for enterprise workloads, positioning Power11 at the intersection of traditional computing and integrated AI processing capabilities.

AI

🔄 What exactly is the MPC Protocol?

LLMs are powerful, but they can't do much on their own. This is where the MCP Protocol steps in - the secret behind scalable AI Agents that's revolutionizing how AI systems interact with the world. Curious to learn how this could transform your IBM i environment?

But you might be thinking, how does MCP compare to APIs?

🚀 Everyone is talking about MCPs - It has gone viral

Model Context Protocol creates a universal standard for connecting language models to external tools and services.

Unlike traditional APIs, MCP establishes a unified communication layer, allowing LLMs to interact seamlessly with multiple tools without extensive engineering.

This breakthrough enables AI assistants to move beyond text prediction to performing actual tasks, bringing us closer to truly capable AI systems that can interact with databases, search engines, and other services through a standardized protocol.

Career

💼 Technical debt threatens IBM i careers

As shortcuts accumulate in software development, organizations face increasing maintenance costs and reduced productivity. This "interest payment" on expedient solutions can eventually lead to technical bankruptcy—a point where systems must be completely rebuilt.

IBM i professionals risk similar career debt when falling behind on modern techniques due to resource constraints or outdated systems.

The good news?

Organizations are increasingly investing in modernization, creating opportunities for curious developers who embrace not only RPG ILE, SQL, but also emerging technologies like AI assistants, MCP integration, and Large Language Models that are transforming how enterprise systems operate and deliver business value.

Development

💻 RPGLE gets smart coding upgrades

Two major improvements arrive in vscode-rpgle 0.33.0, enhancing the IBM i development experience. Inspired by Golang, the first feature shows context-aware, built-in functions when using dot notation on variables, displaying options specific to the variable type. The second improvement adds signature information for procedures, prototypes, and built-in functions, showing parameter details while coding. Both features create a more intuitive, object-oriented coding workflow for RPG developers.

👨‍💻 AI Code Intelligence for IBM i Modernization

IBM i References Pages uncovers Ozgar.ai helps teams understand, document, and enhance legacy applications. The platform combines AI with visual tools to aid faster onboarding, accelerate issue resolution, and preserve institutional knowledge during staff transitions.

ERP

🏢 AI transforms traditional ERP landscape

As generative AI sweeps across the enterprise software market, ERP systems are evolving from rule-based platforms to intelligent ecosystems. By 2026, Gartner predicts 40% of enterprise apps will incorporate task-specific AI agents, with MCP protocol adoption accelerating interoperability between systems.

How will this play out in IBM i shops?

Around 70% of IBM i users build their own applications, according to Fortra’s latest IBM i Marketplace Study. That’s a higher rate of custom development than you see on most other platforms, and it will shape the future of IBM i and the business apps that run on it.

While IBM i remains capable of supporting modern development practices, mainstream ERP vendors may prioritize SaaS deployments over native IBM i solutions, leaving the platform's future dependent on innovative developers who can integrate agentic AI workflows into existing systems.

The Future of Agentic AI applications in the enterprise.

Trends

🚀 AI datacenters are heading to space

As AI demands strain land and power resources, companies are exploring orbital solutions to the resource crisis.

Project Stargate in Texas, costing $500 billion and spanning Central Park-sized acreage, exemplifies AI's voracious appetite for space and energy. Communities increasingly resist these massive installations due to water consumption (5M gallons daily), noise pollution, and grid stress. Space-based alternatives offer abundant solar energy, natural cooling, and reduced latency—with Avalanche Technology, Lonestar Data Holdings, HPE, and Starcloud leading development efforts.

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