NetApp, which is positioning itself as ‘the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company’, has introduced a new enterprise-grade data platform for artificial intelligence, designed to help organisations manage and accelerate AI workloads across hybrid and multicloud environments.
The launch centres on NetApp AFX, a disaggregated all-flash storage system, and the NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE), which unifies data services for AI pipelines. Together they aim to provide exabyte-scale performance, data resilience, and built-in integration with NVIDIA’s accelerated computing platform, the company said in a statement today.
“With the new NetApp AFX systems, customers now have a trusted, proven choice in on-premises enterprise storage built on a comprehensive data platform to rapidly propel AI innovation forward,” said Syam Nair, Chief Product Officer at NetApp.
“NetApp AI Data Engine enables customers to seamlessly connect their entire data estate across hybrid multicloud environments to build a unified data foundation. Enterprises can then dramatically accelerate their AI data pipelines by collapsing multiple data preparation and management steps into the integrated NetApp AI Data Engine, built with NVIDIA accelerated computing and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software complete with semantic search, data vectorization and data guardrails.”
Andrew Sotiropoulos, Senior Vice President and General Manager of NetApp Asia Pacific, said enterprises are moving from “passive data storage to active data management—extracting, processing, and curating data to unlock insights.”
He added: “This evolution requires them to deploy architectures that break down silos and combine strong data and infrastructure security with fast recovery practices. With our latest innovations, NetApp provides a secure, unified, and future-ready environment for your data foundation across the Hybrid Cloud — supporting those who operationalize AI at scale to drive real business outcomes.”
The platform also features an Object API enabling direct access to Azure services without data duplication, and a global namespace capability that unifies data estates across on-premises and Microsoft Azure.
Justin Boitano, Vice President, Enterprise AI Products at NVIDIA, said: “NetApp’s data platform has transformed into an AI-native storage platform by integrating NVIDIA accelerated computing and software, including leading AI models. With this new platform, organizations can index and search vast amounts of unstructured data across their enterprise to drive innovation and deliver real business impact.”
Industry analyst Michael Leone, Practice Director and Principal Analyst at Omdia, described the announcement as “the speedy fulfillment of an ambitious vision on how to manage data for AI,” noting that independent scaling of performance and capacity on top of ONTAP’s resilience will “enable enterprises to confidently invest in AI projects that deliver value quickly to the business.”
NetApp is currently showcasing the new platform and related innovations at INSIGHT 2025 in Las Vegas, where executives and partners will present sessions and demos on how the company’s intelligent data infrastructure is powering AI transformation across industries across the world.
