NetApp and Nutanix say storage has become the last line of defense in the AI era

Companies are rethinking their technology foundations as AI infrastructure modernization and security demands grow. The result is surging demand for flexible platforms that can run legacy and modern applications simultaneously while keeping data secure and AI-ready.

NetApp Inc. and Nutanix Inc. are now working together in an effort to help customers modernize their infrastructure, according to Ketan Shah (pictured, left), vice president of products at Nutanix. The partnership addresses a gap in the virtualization market as organizations look for more flexibility in how they run and protect workloads across hybrid environments.

“NetApp and Nutanix are combining forces to help customers modernize the infrastructure. Not just today for virtualization — [taking the] simplicity and agility of Nutanix with the agility and resilience of NetApp — but also taking them on a journey to modernize as the apps evolve with containers and AI,” Shah said. “That’s really what this is about.”

Shah and Sandeep Singh (right), senior vice president and general manager of enterprise storage at NetApp, spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier and co-host Alison Kosik at Nutanix .NEXT, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed AI infrastructure modernization and the growing importance of secure, AI-ready data platforms. (* Disclosure below.)

The two companies announced a collaboration at .NEXT 2026 to integrate NetApp Intelligent Data Infrastructure with the Nutanix Cloud Platform, giving customers greater choice to optimize their virtualization and data strategies across on-premises, cloud and containerized environments. The integration combines NetApp ONTAP’s data management capabilities with Nutanix’s unified hybrid multicloud operations — with storage emerging as the layer where AI readiness, cyber resilience and infrastructure modernization all converge, according to Singh.

“When you think about storage, it very quickly elevates from not only just storing data, but being able to analyze it, protect it and secure it, and then enable AI to have access to it. When you think about the cybersecurity angle … storage becomes the last line of defense for customers. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” Singh said. “When you think about the AI perspective, it’s critical for AI to be able to have the context of your enterprise data.”

As the partnership roadmap extends into agentic AI, the infrastructure challenge shifts from simply running AI workloads to governing them at scale. Unmanaged AI deployments — shadow AI — represent a growing operational risk as agent proliferation outpaces visibility into how those workloads consume compute, storage and network resources, Shah noted. The answer is not a separate AI infrastructure layer but deeper integration of AI governance into the core platform itself.

“We don’t think AI will be just another silo of infrastructure,” Shah said. “We talk about shadow AI as an emerging thing. We think that should be integrated into the core infrastructure for efficiency, scale and economics.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Nutanix .NEXT:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Nutanix .NEXT 2026. Sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE