Companies are moving toward flexible, secure data foundations that make them more versatile for artificial intelligence. At the same time, there’s a growing focus on stronger security and smarter automation to build trust and resilience as AI becomes central to operations.

AI offers organizations the potential to boost productivity and unlock new business models and revenue streams. But fundamentally, AI in the enterprise presents a data problem, according to Sandeep Singh (pictured), senior vice president and general manager of enterprise storage at NetApp Inc.

NetApp’s Sandeep Singh talks with theCUBE about secure data foundations.

“Data is the fuel for AI. As customers are looking at starting on their AI journey, the first challenge becomes what is the right infrastructure to support their AI initiatives?” Singh said. “But very quickly, it’s about ‘How do I get my data AI-ready?’ This is where customers need not only the performance and the scale at the infrastructure level: They need all of the enterprise-grade capabilities.”

Singh spoke with theCUBE’s Christophe Bertrand at the NetApp Insight 2025 event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the rise of unified, AI-ready data platforms and the growing importance of cyber-resilient and data-centric infrastructure. (* Disclosure below.)

The importance of secure data foundations

This new environment calls for enabling secure, multi-tenant environments and seamless data mobility. Information must be accessed by graphics processing units without duplication or compromising security. It necessitates having the ability to seamlessly have on-premises and cloud stitched together, given that AI is inherently a hybrid cloud workflow, according to Singh.

“There’s a ton of innovation that’s happening in the public cloud tied to AI, and yet customers’ data is sitting on-prem, and you need to be able to combine those,” Singh said. “AI thrives on data, but data has to be fundamentally secure.”

That’s where the launch of NetApp’s new AI Data Engine comes into play. Behind the scenes, NetApp is also leveraging AI internally in its own products, according to Singh.

“This is where it comes into real-time ransomware detection. It’s not about detecting hours to days later,” he said. “It is about making detection in primary storage within seconds to minutes and then being able to inform the necessary security teams and enable rapid recovery from that standpoint.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the NetApp Insight 2025 event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the NetApp Insight event. Neither NetApp Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE