Breakthroughs breathe new life into legacy systems as agencies look for platforms to safely run AI models with sensitive data, ISG Provider Lens™ report says.
STAMFORD, Conn.- State and local governments in the U.S. are reevaluating mainframes as strategic assets and revisiting choices between reengineering and cloud migration, according to a new research report published today by Information Services Group, a global AI-centered technology research and advisory firm.
AI offers a wealth of new options to help the public sector unleash the potential of mainframe systems. Weighing those options against the risks of moving data and applications that have run on mainframes for decades, they often reconsider their roadmaps.
The 2025 ISG Provider Lens™ Mainframe — Services and Solutions report for the U.S. public sector finds that AI is beginning to make mainframes easier and less expensive to maintain. Agencies are also discovering that mainframes may be uniquely suited to running AI workloads while protecting mission-critical data. Advances in AI created a wave of public-sector interest in mainframes in 2024 that is expected to continue into 2025.
“AI offers a wealth of new options to help the public sector unleash the potential of mainframe systems,” said Nathan Frey, ISG partner and lead, U.S. Public Sector. “When agencies weigh those possibilities against the risks of moving data and applications that have run on mainframes for decades, they often reconsider their roadmaps.”
State, local and educational (SLED) agencies in the U.S. are now considering which applications to keep on mainframes, how to optimize those applications and how to efficiently access mainframe data for use with AI models, the report says. AI, including generative AI, can streamline software development, testing and documentation, making it easier to either refactor or maintain mainframe applications. AI code assistants and chatbots can reduce the impact of the mainframe skills shortage by helping newer developers get up to speed.
More agencies are exploring the potential of AI and gaining a new appreciation for mainframes’ formidable processing and data management capabilities. The Trump administration’s avowed goal of reducing the size and influence of the federal government is expected to increase interest in using AI for automation. State and local governments are considering the same as they face tight budgets and the possibility of taking over some federal functions.
Policies on offshoring state and local government data and computing are also changing, the report says. New hybrid cloud architectures make it easier to use resources outside the U.S. for cost savings while complying with regulations. DevOps methodologies offer new ways to segregate highly sensitive information, which needs to remain on premises or in the U.S., from less sensitive data that can safely be stored offshore.
Rising U.S. public-sector demand for mainframe services has attracted more providers to this market. However, as agencies increase their reliance on providers, they are gravitating toward those that have built up experience in the sector and that understand its unique mainframe requirements.
“State and local agencies in the U.S. are finally rising to the challenge of modernizing age-old mainframe IT environments,” said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research. “Leading service providers have the AI tools and specialized skills to help them make the leap.”
