PETALING JAYA: NetApp Malaysia Sdn Bhd has embarked on new developments to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) innovation in Malaysia, bolstering the country’s goal of becoming Southeast Asia’s AI hub.
The company said that by providing essential infrastructure for generative AI (GenAI), NetApp enables Malaysian organisations to harness transformative technologies and overcome data challenges.
Country manager Alwyn David said NetApp’s latest innovations position the company to help Malaysian businesses unlock the full value of their data with AI and achieve their strategic goals.
“GenAI powers practical business applications such as content generation, summarising extensive information and interactive questions and answer sessions,” he said.
David cited a Gartner study forecasting that AI software spending would reach US$297.9 billion by 2027, with GenAI accounting for over a third of such investment.
At the recent NetApp Insight 2024 conference, CEO George Kurian emphasised that AI challenges are fundamentally data challenges. He outlined how intelligent data infrastructure can secure, govern, and continually update relevant data to support a unified GenAI stack.
NetApp is undergoing Nvidia certification for its Ontap storage system with the Nvidia DGX SuperPOD AI infrastructure, which will enable organisations to manage large-scale AI projects effectively, particularly those involving large language models.
The company has created a global metadata namespace to allow secure exploration and management of data across hybrid multicloud environments, facilitating feature extraction and classification for AI applications.
Additionally, NetApp Ontap offers an integrated AI data pipeline that automates the preparation of unstructured data, enabling high-scale, low-latency semantic searches and retrieval augmented generation inferencing.
NetApp enhances its native cloud services by providing an integrated data platform for data ingestion, discovery and cataloguing.
“Organisations across Malaysia are experimenting with GenAI to boost efficiency and drive innovation,” said David, adding that by providing secure, scalable, and high-performance data infrastructure that integrates with leading platforms, NetApp helps customers overcome barriers to implementing GenAI.
The latest announcement follows NetApp’s recent introduction of its latest all-flash ASA A-Series storage systems. The systems are designed to optimise block storage workloads and enable modernisation for organisations of all sizes.