And with that, the opening day keynote is over. We'll be back tomorrow for the day-two Innovation keynote.
And now we have the biggest announcement of the event this week, the launch of NetApp Novus. CEO George Kurian says this marks one of the biggest announcements ever from NetApp.
NetApp Novus is a new storage architecture designed to contend with the huge performance requirements of AI factories. Storage, the company says, has become a recurring bottleneck for these GPU-hungry environments.
The system boasts throughput of up to 100Tbps and is a zetta-scale file system - utterly bonkers numbers. Kurian says this is equivalent to unifying all of the world’s data center capacity that shipped last year.
Keystone Sovereign is a big talking point at NetApp Insight. This is a new sovereignty-focused add-on for the keystone storage as a service (STaaS) offering.
This will allow users to select dedicated sovereign options, with the roll-out initially beginning in France and Germany.
You can read more about Keystone Sovereign here.
The company is also offering customers the ability to map their data “at no cost” for six months.
“Your data, activated, wherever it lives.”
Now for the big product announcements….
The NetApp AI Data Engine now supports heterogeneous data discovery capabilities, Syam Nair says this will allow users to improve data visibility across any environment or storage architecture.
Arindam Banerjee, Chief Platform and Technology Officer at NetApp has taken the stage now to discuss how storage architectures need to evolve to contend with surging performance demands.
The rise of AI factories means many storage architectures can't keep pace in terms of performance, he says.
For workloads that need "something more specialized", that's where StorageGRID also provides users with high-performance object storage at a "massive scale".
Put simply, the platform is highly flexible and capable of handling a vast array of different workloads and formats.
We've moved onto unified storage now. Scalable, flexible infrastructure is vital for organizations to contend with evolving business needs. This is where NetApp ONTAP plays a vital role, acting as the foundation that handles enterprise workloads.
Many organizations are now running hybrid cloud setups, Nair says, which adds an additional layer of complexity when it comes to data visibility.
"Infrastructure in four different places, four different teams, four different consoles," he says. "Admins can't tell with confidence whether the same policy is enforced everywhere all at once."
The solution here, according to Nair, lies in the NetApp Console. This offers users intuitive data management capabilities and "complete unified control". The console provides a single control plane for users to keep tabs and monitor disparate storage infrastructure.
Backups are also critical when one considers the threat of ransomware, Nair adds. "Detection with recovery is just an expensive alarm". Nair says the NetApp platform helps "close the loop" when something goes wrong, supporting recovery and backup capabilities.
We're onto security and resilience now. A critical focus for organizations globally.
"If it's valuable, it's a target, and if it's a target, it needs protecting," Nair says. NetApp offers enterprises "proactive protection" and a range of tools designed to improve visibility for defenders.
Security and data protection is more important than ever with the advent of agents. These bots have deep access to mission-critical data. Nair says this means we "need a new meaning of zero trust".
This isn't just about network posturing or an "identity check at the door", either. The NetApp platform has zero trust capabilities built in to shore up defenses and keep data secure.
Nair says cleaning up and consolidating data is easier said than done, however. Take medical researchers, for example. They sit on mountains of data sources and various assets dating back decades in some cases.
Pulling this all together and deriving context is a monumental task. This is where services such as AIDE helps streamline processes.
This is where the NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE) helps enterprises clean up and consolidate data, allowing them to derive context and value from their data.
"Your data is everywhere, but what has been missing is the layer that knows what is in the data," he says. "The layer that turns a data estate into the memory and context."
AIDE offers enterprises a range of storage and data management capabilities, allowing them to improve data visibility. The service launched last year, and Nair says engagement with customers over the last 12 months has shown its value.
Enterprise data has never been more important in the age of AI, according to Nair. It's the lifeblood that fuels AI applications and agents. And it needs to be 'AI-ready.
"Agents that act on your behalf are only as good as the data they can reach, trust, and act on safely," Nair adds. Data fragmentation hampers this, preventing agents from accessing vital information to support users and conduct tasks.
And with that, Kurian makes way for Syam Nair, chief product officer at NetApp.
Nair begins his talk with a question: "Where do I put my data?"
The answer, he says, is "scalable, durable data storage". That's where NetApp comes in.
"We became the most trusted place to hold your intellectual property, your most precious asset, data. Everybody talks about it, the real truth of the enterprise," he says.
"You've trusted us with your data, your organization's memory for more than three decades, and you can continue to trust us that we will provide you with the tools to turn your data into knowledge."
The NetApp Platform performs several key roles for organizations, according to Kurian. First and foremost, the platform offers intuitive management capabilities for customers to help make their data 'AI-ready'.
Second, the platform helps unify storage estates, tackling those pesky bottlenecks and silos that hamper AI innovation.
"No silos, total visibility," he adds. Security is also a key focus, with Kurian noting that NetApp boasts "unquestionably the most secure storage on the planet".
Kurian says that new, modern data architectures require both memory and context.
"Together, memory and context create feeling, impact. And combined with actions, this provides actions that provide for continuous learning," he says.
"For you enterprise to be truly AI enabled, it needs context and memory for agents."
Of course, this is where the NetApp platform comes in, enabling organizations to consolidate and unify their data estates and to provide a solid foundation for AI innovation.
These operational challenges are paralleled by a range of other considerations, Kurian says.
Enterprises also face rising cybersecurity-related threats such as ransomware, as well as new regulatory compliance considerations. Data sovereignty has rapidly become a key talking point for enterprises on both sides of the Atlantic. These are exacerbating challenges for enterprises.
This 'dark data' is an untapped goldmine for organizations, but they're simply not able to capitalize on this.
This is why organizations have to overhaul and redefine their data estates. Modern data demands require modern data architectures to help improve visibility and data flows. This is critical given around 85% of data sits distributed in silos.
The actual type of data also matters here as well, Kurian notes. Engineering documentation research data, operational files, media assets, you name it, these are spread across an array of fragmented environments.
Data is the leading constraint for organizations dabbling in AI, Kurian says. The company 'knows a lot about data' - and it's here to help customers.
93% of organizations report at least one data-related challenge is blocking their AI ambitions. This is exacerbated when organizations scale the technology, particularly with agentic AI.
Here we go! CEO George Kurian kicks things off at NetApp Insight 2026 with a message on the importance of data readiness in the age of AI.
"While much of the AI conversation has evolved, shifting focus from discussions around models to GPUs and AI factories to inference performance and token economics," he says
"What has not changed is the critical importance of your data and your data infrastructure.”
We're in the keynote theatre and now it's just a waiting game until the opening keynote. A lot of attendees making their way in now.
Crowds are beginning to descend on the conference center here at the MGM Grand, with a steady flow of attendees making their way to the conference ahead of the keynote.
We're still an hour or so out from the opening keynote with CEO George Kurian, but while we're waiting why not catch up on what we expect to hear at the conference this week?
NetApp's data management push is likely to be a big talking point. As with its counterparts elsewhere in the industry, NetApp is no longer a simple hardware company, it's offering a full stack setup for customers spanning hardware, software, and open standards.
Elsewhere, you can't escape the spectre of hardware costs. The memory crunch has hit organizations hard, with vendors hiking prices to compensate for the crisis. NetApp will likely look to calm customer concerns on this front.