KUALA LUMPUR: NetApp Malaysia Sdn Bhd has unveiled a new data platform strategy to help enterprises move artificial intelligence from pilot projects to large-scale production, as the region accelerates investment in AI and data infrastructure.
The strategy focuses on enabling organisations to run AI workloads securely, in line with local regulations, at a sustainable cost across hybrid and on-premises environments, the company said in a statement.
NetApp said Asean is nearing a phase in which AI spending is growing faster than overall digital investment, with adoption expected to add nearly US$1 trillion to the region’s GDP by 2030.
Many enterprises, however, are now grappling with how to scale AI without compromising data governance, security and operational stability.
“2026 is shaping up to be the year of production AI for Asean, but businesses are facing complex environments, security risks and sovereignty requirements,” said NetApp area vice president and general manager (Asean, Greater China and South Korea) Henry Kho.
The company’s approach centres on its data platform, which combines storage, data management services and a metadata engine to support AI workloads across different environments and help organisations prepare and manage data for production use.
As part of the strategy, NetApp introduced new systems, including the NetApp AFX platform for high-performance AI workloads and the NetApp AI Data Engine, built on NVIDIA’s AI Data Platform design, to simplify data preparation and keep data current for AI applications.
NetApp also highlighted its ransomware-resilience capabilities, positioning data protection and recovery as a core part of enterprise AI infrastructure, particularly for regulated sectors such as financial services, healthcare, and the public sector.
NetApp said its systems are already being used in the public sector.
The statement also quoted the National Digital Department deputy director
Izheir Azam Ibrahim Rais, who stated that NetApp’s storage platforms support government efforts to improve digital services and strengthen cyber resilience across agencies.
