Amdahl calculated that for the series to be profitable, they would have to produce three models. The high-end AEC concept would have only a small number of sales, so it would be matched by a smaller model with {{frac|3}} the performance, and an even smaller version with {{frac|9}}, which would still make it the fastest machine in IBM's lineup.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=67}}
In May 1969, IBM upper management instead decided to cancel the entire project.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=67}} What had initially been intended to be a project to compete with the fast-moving CDC had now stretched on for the better part of a decade and showed little evidence that it would ever be worthwhile. Amdahl later claimed thisit was primarilycancellation was due primarily to it upsetting IBM's carefully planned pricing structure. The company as a whole had an understanding that machines above a certain performance level would always lose money, and that introducing a machine that was so fast would require it to be priced in a way that would force their other machines to be reduced in price.<ref name=interview/>
Shortly after the announcement of the project's cancelationcancellation, in August 1969, IBM announced the [[IBM System/360 Model 195]], a re-implementation of the Model 91 using [[integrated circuit]]s that made it twice as fast as the [[IBM System/360 Model 85|Model 85]], which at that time was the fastest machine in the lineup. To address the high-end market, a [[Vector processor|vector processing]] task force was started in Poughkeepsie.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=68}}
When the project was canceledcancelled, many of the engineers were not interested in returning to the main IBM research campus in New York. and wished to remain in California. Some ended up at IBM's [[hard drive]] research facility in [[San Jose, California]], while many others left to form a new company, Multi Access System Corp, or MASCOR. This failed to raise capital and folded after only a few months.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=68}} Amdahl resigned in September 1970 and formed his own company to build the system he had outlined with Earle, introducing it as the [[Amdahl 470/6]] in 1975. [[Amdahl Corporation]] would become a major vendor of IBM-compatible systems into the 1980s, when the mainframe market began to shrink.
Many of the innovations resulting from the project would eventually find direct realization in the [[IBM RS/6000]] series of machines (later known as the [[IBM System p]] line of workstations and servers), apart from influencing the design of other machines and architectures.
