NetApp outlines AI-ready data infrastructure strategy for India at INSIGHT Xtra Mumbai 2026

Introduces AFX systems and AI Data Engine to help enterprises scale AI across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

NetApp has introduced data infrastructure vision for India at INSIGHT Xtra Mumbai 2026, positioning intelligent data infrastructure as a foundation for enterprise-scale AI adoption.

As Indian organisations accelerate generative AI and advanced analytics initiatives, NetApp said many are facing structural challenges in data environments.

Data distributed across on-premises systems, multiple public clouds and the edge is making it difficult to ensure performance, security and AI readiness at scale.

The company noted that legacy and fragmented infrastructure is slowing enterprises to move AI projects from pilots to production deployments.

As part of the strategy, NetApp introduced its latest AFX systems and the AI Data Engine (AIDE), co-engineered with NVIDIA, to simplify AI data management and eliminate performance bottlenecks.

NetApp’s area vice president for India and SAARC, Premalakshmi Ramakrishnan, said as enterprises move from experimentation to embedding AI into core business processes, NetApp, is focused on helping organisations to build the data foundations required to compete, innovate, and scale responsibly in the AI era.

NetApp AFX delivers enterprise-grade disaggregated storage built specifically for AI workloads.

Powered by ONTAP, the platform allows organisations to independently scale performance and capacity, optimising infrastructure utilisation as AI models grow in size and complexity.

AFX scales linearly up to 128 nodes and supports exabyte-level capacity, enabling enterprises to manage massive AI datasets without rearchitecting infrastructure.

The platform also integrates with NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD environments, helping enterprises accelerate model training and high-throughput inference workloads while maintaining enterprise-grade data management controls.

Simplify AI data preparation and management

The NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE), built leveraging the NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design, integrates NVIDIA AI infrastructure, networking and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software. AIDE provides capabilities including semantic search, data vectorisation and data guardrails to simplify AI data preparation and management.

It also incorporates data change detection and synchronisation features to eliminate redundant data copies and ensure datasets remain current.

NetApp highlighted enhancements to its NetApp Ransomware Resilience service.

The service is designed to strengthen ONTAP workloads through proactive protection, AI-driven detection, real-time response and clean recovery of mission-critical data.

The company positioned security as a core component of AI-ready infrastructure rather than an add-on layer.

NetApp’s chief product officer, Syam Nair, said, “What we are seeing across enterprises is a clear gap between AI ambition and the readiness of underlying data infrastructure.”

“Data environments that are fragmented, difficult to scale, or insecure create friction that prevents AI from moving beyond pilots. NetApp is addressing this challenge by redefining enterprise data infrastructure for the AI era. Our unified data platform, including NetApp AFX systems and NetApp AI Data Engine, enables organisations to accelerate AI data pipelines and establish a secure foundation for deploying AI at scale,” Nair added.

NetApp said its strategy is aligned with national initiatives such as Digital India and the India AI Mission.