Joint solution combines compute and data infrastructure to optimize GPUs at scale

NetApp® (NASDAQ:NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, today announced a strategic collaboration with Supermicro to deliver jointly validated AI infrastructure solutions spanning large-scale AI factories, enterprise deployments, neoclouds, and sovereign AI initiatives. By combining Supermicro's AI-optimized compute and rack-scale systems with the NetApp Platform, the companies will help customers accelerate deployment, improve GPU utilization, strengthen data governance, and reduce operational complexity.

NetApp and Supermicro are creating a full-stack foundation for AI that extends beyond high-performance storage. The collaboration brings together Supermicro’s rack-scale compute, networking, power, and liquid-cooling expertise with the NetApp Platform’s unified data management, cyber resilience, hybrid-cloud leadership, and disaggregated scale. Customers gain an architecture that can be deployed quickly, evolve across generations of compute, and deliver a consistent data experience from enterprise environments to the world’s largest AI factories. Because the compute and data infrastructure are tested and validated as a unified system, customers can shorten design and integration cycles, reduce deployment risk, and move AI environments into production faster.

"Customers need AI infrastructure that drives innovation and transformation, delivers world-class economics, and works seamlessly at scale from day one," said Alvaro Celis, Senior Vice President, Chief Commercial, Partner and Ecosystem Officer at NetApp. "By combining Supermicro’s AI leadership and ability to scale with the NetApp Platform, we can give customers—from commercial, enterprise to internet-with the most demanding requirements—secure, reliable AI solutions they can deploy quickly to accelerate innovation and build market leadership."

The collaboration will make it faster and easier for customers to build Intelligent Data Infrastructure powered by the NetApp Platform in demanding AI factory environments. By pairing AI-optimized compute with AI-ready data services, NetApp and Supermicro will deliver jointly validated solutions organized around three core capabilities:

Integrated AI Solutions at Scale: Supermicro's AI-optimized servers, GPU platforms, and rack-scale systems combine with the NetApp Platform to deliver a validated solution for AI deployments ranging from individual enterprise AI projects to full AI factories, gigafactories, and sovereign AI initiatives.
Enterprise-Grade Data Management, Security, and Sovereignty: The joint solutions are expected to deliver the governance, cyber resilience, and compliance that enterprises, governments, neoclouds, and GPU-as-a-service providers require, so customers can scale AI while keeping maintaining strong governance and control over their data.
Maximized AI Investment ROI Through AI-Ready Data: The collaboration removes data bottlenecks to keep GPUs supplied with high-performance access to data for training, inference, and retrieval-augmented generation. Customers will spend less time waiting on data and instead spend more time training models.

The collaboration also enables customers to scale compute and data independently as workload needs change, improving infrastructure efficiency and preserving flexibility across the AI lifecycle. Customers adopting the joint solution will be able to securely access and manage data across on-premises and cloud environments, bringing AI infrastructure to the data while maintaining consistent governance and protection.

"Supermicro and NetApp have collaborated to offer AI-optimized, rack-scale infrastructure with intelligent data infrastructure built for governance, cyber resilience, sovereignty, and hybrid cloud flexibility," said Matthew Thauberger, Chief Revenue Officer, Supermicro. "Whether customers are deploying an enterprise AI cluster, building a neocloud, delivering GPU-as-a-service, or standing up a sovereign AI factory, this collaboration gives them a validated path where the infrastructure and the data are designed to work together from the start."

To simplify the customer deployment and operations of NetApp Novus architecture, NetApp and Supermicro will deliver NetApp Novus Data Director software running on qualified Supermicro servers with NetApp AFF A90 systems as the high-performance ONTAP data layer. By separating the metadata and data planes, NetApp Novus enables each to scale independently within a single namespace, helping AI infrastructure providers expand performance and capacity as their environments grow without repeatedly redesigning the underlying architecture. This initial implementation is the first step in a broader collaboration to co-engineer integrated infrastructure solutions for enterprise AI, neocloud, sovereign AI, and large-scale AI factory environments.

NetApp and Supermicro are also collaborating to support enterprises building a private AI platform with NetApp AIPod with Supermicro, a NetApp-validated converged infrastructure architecture based on the NVIDIA Reference Architecture guidance. Validated as a complete system and delivered through NetApp’s ecosystem of channel partners, this solution gives enterprises proven guidance for AI training, inference, and agentic workloads from dozens to hundreds of GPUs.

Statements by NetApp about unreleased offerings and future plans are for informational purposes only, are subject to change without notice, and should not be relied upon for purchasing or other decisions. Such statements do not constitute a commitment, obligation, guarantee, or warranty of any kind by NetApp, including about availability, functionality, pricing, or timing.

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About NetApp

For more than three decades, NetApp has helped the world’s leading organizations navigate change – from the rise of enterprise storage to the intelligent era defined by data and AI. Today, NetApp is the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, helping customers turn data into a catalyst for innovation, resilience, and growth.

At the heart of that infrastructure is the NetApp data platform – the unified, enterprise-grade, intelligent foundation that connects, protects, and activates data across every cloud, workload, and environment. Built on the proven power of NetApp ONTAP, our leading data management software and OS, and enhanced by automation through the AI Data Engine and AFX, it delivers observability, resilience, and intelligence at scale.

Disaggregated by design, the NetApp data platform separates storage, services, and control so enterprises can modernize faster, scale efficiently, and innovate without lock-in. As the only enterprise storage platform natively embedded in the world’s largest clouds, it gives organizations the freedom to run any workload anywhere with consistent performance, governance, and protection.

With NetApp, data is always ready – ready to defend against threats, ready to power AI, and ready to drive the next breakthrough. That’s why the world’s most forward-thinking enterprises trust NetApp to turn intelligence into advantage.

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NetApp

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NetApp

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