NetApp has unveiled a new data platform vision aimed at helping ASEAN enterprises scale artificial intelligence (AI) securely and compliantly, as regional AI investment accelerates.

Announced at INSIGHT Xtra Singapore 2026 on Feb 10, the strategy focuses on enabling businesses to move AI initiatives from pilot stages to production without compromising governance or operational stability.

The company said ASEAN is approaching a critical inflection point, with AI investment growing faster than overall digital spending. AI adoption is expected to lift the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) by nearly US$1 trillion by 2030.

Addressing ASEAN’s Hybrid And Sovereignty Challenges

NetApp’s AI data platform is designed to address fragmented regulatory environments and varying levels of cloud maturity across ASEAN markets.

Enterprises in sectors such as financial services, healthcare and the public sector face increasing pressure to deploy AI systems that deliver real-time insights while meeting data sovereignty and governance requirements. Hybrid and local architectures remain the default in much of the region.

“2026 is shaping up to be the year of ‘production AI’ for ASEAN,” said Henry Kho, Area Vice President and General Manager, GCASK (Greater China, ASEAN and South Korea), NetApp.

He added that businesses are grappling with scaling workloads across complex environments, preparing data for AI use, and protecting data from cyber threats while complying with sovereignty regulations.

The NetApp data platform combines storage, data management services and a metadata engine to create what the company describes as an “Intelligent Data Infrastructure” embedded with governance and cyber resilience at the data layer.

New AI Infrastructure And Ransomware Capabilities

To support this vision, NetApp introduced new products including the NetApp AFX systems and the NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE).

NetApp AFX is designed for demanding AI workloads and enables independent scaling of capacity and performance. Built on NetApp ONTAP, it can scale linearly up to 128 nodes and deliver high data throughput for model training and inference workloads  .

The NetApp AI Data Engine, built leveraging the NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design, integrates accelerated computing, networking and AI software to simplify AI data pipelines. It includes semantic search, data vectorisation, guardrails and synchronisation features to keep datasets current and reduce redundant copies.

NetApp AFX is also certified storage for NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD AI supercomputing environments, aimed at removing data bottlenecks when processing large AI models.

The company also highlighted enhancements to its NetApp Ransomware Resilience service, which provides AI-driven detection, real-time response and recovery capabilities for ONTAP workloads.

Louis Xu, Head of Bitdeer AI Cloud, said complying with local data sovereignty laws while maintaining performance has been a major hurdle when expanding AI capabilities across borders.

He said NetApp’s approach provides unified control across hybrid environments to meet compliance standards and support real-time analytics and inference.

Regional AI Momentum

The announcement comes as governments and enterprises across Southeast Asia accelerate AI adoption, particularly in regulated industries.

Analysts have noted that data governance, cyber resilience and hybrid cloud interoperability are emerging as critical factors in scaling AI beyond pilot projects.

NetApp said its enhanced data platform and AI-focused systems are available to support enterprises across ASEAN. As AI workloads expand, the company aims to position its data infrastructure as a foundation for sovereign and production-scale AI deployments in the region