Kuala Lumpur: NetApp today outlined a new data platform strategy aimed at helping ASEAN enterprises move artificial intelligence from pilot projects into large scale production, as the region steps up investment in AI and data infrastructure.
The company said the strategy, unveiled at its INSIGHT Xtra Singapore 2026 event, is designed to help organisations run AI workloads securely, in line with local regulations and at a sustainable cost across hybrid and on-premise environments.
ASEAN is approaching a phase where AI spending is growing faster than overall digital investment and adoption is expected to add close to US$1 trillion to the region’s GDP by 2030. NetApp said many enterprises are now focused on how to scale AI in production without losing control over data governance, security and operational stability.
NetApp’s approach centres on what it calls its data platform, which brings together storage, data management services and a metadata engine to support AI workloads across different environments. The company said the goal is to help enterprises prepare and manage data more effectively so that AI systems can be deployed in real business operations, not just experiments.
“2026 is shaping up to be the year of production AI for ASEAN, but businesses here are dealing with complex environments, data security risks and sovereignty requirements,” said NetApp Area Vice President and General Manager for Greater China, ASEAN and South Korea Henry Kho (pic).
“We want to give enterprises a data foundation that builds in governance and cyber resilience from the start, so they can use their data with confidence.”
NetApp said this is especially relevant in ASEAN, where regulatory requirements vary by country and many organisations operate across a mix of cloud and on-premisesystems. Sectors such as financial services, healthcare and the public sector are under pressure to deliver real time insights while meeting strict rules on data protection and location.
As part of the strategy, the company introduced new systems and software aimed at supporting large scale AI workloads. These include the NetApp AFX systems, which are designed to separate storage capacity from performance so organisations can scale each independently, and the NetApp AI Data Engine, which focuses on preparing and keeping data up to date for AI use.
The AI Data Engine is built on NVIDIA’s AI Data Platform design and is intended to simplify data preparation through features such as semantic search, data vectorisation and change detection, reducing the need for multiple copies of the same data.
NetApp also highlighted its ransomware resilience capabilities, positioning data protection and recovery as a core part of enterprise AI infrastructure rather than a separate security layer.
The company said its systems are already being used in the public sector. Izheir Azam bin Ibrahim Rais, Deputy Director of Jabatan Digital Negara, said NetApp’s storage platforms support government efforts to improve digital services while strengthening cyber resilience across agencies.
NetApp has been expanding its focus beyond traditional storage into what it describes as intelligent data infrastructure, as enterprises look for ways to manage growing volumes of data and support AI workloads across multiple environments.
