NetApp’s India operations are growing, and the company is looking to make India its largest revenue contributor in Asia within a couple of years. The San Jose, California-based provider of storage-related products and services sees a critical role of NetApp’ IDI, or intelligent data infrastructure, to help businesses manage data across diverse infrastructures. In this interview, Puneet Gupta, MD & VP, NetApp India/Saarc, speaks to Sudhir Chowdhary on the importance of good-quality data in AI implementation and how IDI aids in better decision-making.
Excerpts:
What is the current state of AI adoption?
The enterprise technology space is witnessing a major shift with the rapid adoption of GenAI, transforming how businesses operate. Companies are scaling AI solutions across their operations. CIOs are re-architecting technology stacks to integrate AI everywhere, focusing on production-grade AI systems that enhance efficiency and innovation. Some key trends include using AI to automate workflows, improve engineering productivity, and optimise tech spending by capturing efficiencies in areas such as software development and service management.
At NetApp, we see growing demand for intelligent data infrastructure to support AI innovation. Customers are focused on secure, governable, and traceable data to drive successful AI deployments.
What is the value proposition that NetApp’s IDI offers to users?
NetApp’s Intelligent Data Infrastructure (IDI) transforms how enterprises leverage their data, driving business success in an increasingly complex digital world. It’s not just about managing data — it’s about enabling enterprises to strategically use data to unlock new opportunities. With built-in support for pre-configured workloads for AI and sustainability, IDI ensures that organisations can meet modern business challenges with advanced capabilities. The infrastructure also aligns with NetApp’s commitment to sustainability, and its rapid evolution helps power the growing demands of enterprise AI.
What are the opportunities you see in the Indian market?
India’s swift AI adoption is a major factor driving NetApp’s business growth. As per the second annual NetApp Cloud Complexity Report, 91% of Indian companies plan to leverage significant amounts of their data for AI model training in 2024. This places India ahead in AI innovation, with 85% of businesses actively optimising their IT infrastructure for AI deployment.
The country is emerging as a global leader in AI, with 70% of companies already engaged in AI projects or planning them.
Moreover, India serves as a key strategic hub for NetApp’s talent and innovation efforts. The company’s presence spans across critical sectors, including large public and private banks, telecom operators, IT service providers, and government bodies. The Indian market’s growing demand for advanced data management solutions is set to fuel further expansion. NetApp anticipates that the country will become its largest market in the Asia-Pacific region in three to five years.
Any significant challenges that you see in scaling AI innovations?
One of the biggest challenges enterprises face when incorporating AI, particularly GenAI, in data management is the use and security of vast amounts of potentially sensitive data. The core issue lies in ensuring proper data governance and accessibility across complex, hybrid environments while maintaining robust security protocols.
Many organisations struggle with fragmented and siloed data structures, which inevitably hinder effective AI model training and deployment. Another concern can be the high upfront costs associated with these initiatives. The costs coupled with the need to protect data against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, remain ongoing concerns.
What is NetApp’s future roadmap?
We’re focused on giving organisations the smart data infrastructure they need to really drive innovation with AI. We believe AI is set to deliver 50% of automation improvements across industries. Our goal is to help businesses leverage this to the fullest and speed up their initiatives by ensuring they can easily and securely access their data, optimised for AI workloads.
We are constantly working on enhancing our data infrastructure solutions to make them faster, more scalable, and more secure, allowing companies to extract the most value from their data. We’re doubling down on boosting cyber resilience and simplifying complex infrastructures.
BLURB
AI is set to deliver 50% of automation improvements across industries. Our goal is to help businesses leverage this to the fullest
