AI is bringing data infrastructure into conversations with buyers who may not have previously dealt with storage. NetApp says those buyers are asking how to activate their data for AI—and the company is positioning its new Novus architecture as one answer for large GPU environments. The “sleeping giant” phrase, however, is NetApp CMO Gabie Boko’s characterization, not an independently measured verdict on the company or its market position.
Why AI is changing the data infrastructure conversation
For organizations building AI systems, the question is not only where data is stored, but how it can be made available to GPU-heavy workloads. In an interview reported by SiliconANGLE on October 1, 2026, NetApp chief marketing officer Gabie Boko described a shift toward buyers focused on activating data. “It’s not that storage or data infrastructure is cool again,” Boko said. “It is that they are asking the questions to say, ‘I need to activate my data.’ Who is going to be the best to do that?”
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NetApp says it has spent three years organizing and positioning itself around “Intelligent Data Infrastructure.” Boko described that phrase as a guide for company decisions: “Intelligent data infrastructure is not just a thing,” she said. “It is a mantra of how we want to make right decisions, how we think about innovation, how we drive strategic decisions forward for our customers, for our partners and for ourselves.” That is NetApp’s account of its strategy; the available reporting does not establish how much the effort has changed the broader market.
What NetApp’s new-buyer signal does—and doesn’t—show
Boko told SiliconANGLE that traffic from net-new names to NetApp’s website rose “about 50% year over year” after keynote announcements, and that many visitors had data-focused titles such as chief data officer. This is a company-reported traffic figure, not an independently verified market statistic. The article does not provide the measurement period beyond year over year, the denominator, an analytics methodology, or outside corroboration. It therefore does not establish a comparable increase in sales, pipeline, or demand across the storage market.
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SiliconANGLE’s report was based on an interview with Boko at NetApp INSIGHT, held in Las Vegas from September 29 through October 1, 2026, according to NetApp’s event page. SiliconANGLE disclosed that theCUBE Research was a paid media partner for the event and said the sponsor had no editorial control.
What Novus is designed to do
On September 29, 2026, NetApp announced Novus, an architecture aimed at AI infrastructure providers running large GPU environments. In its announcement, NetApp says Novus separates metadata management from the data path, allowing performance, capacity, and concurrency to scale independently within a single NFS namespace.
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The initial configuration combines Novus Data Director, running on qualified Supermicro infrastructure, with NetApp AFF A90 systems providing ONTAP data services. NetApp says the architecture is orderable and designed to exceed 100 TB/s of aggregate throughput. That figure is a company-stated design target, not an independently measured production result.
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How the announced components fit together
- Novus Data Director: The metadata-management component in the announced configuration, running on qualified Supermicro servers.
- NetApp AFF A90: The system delivering ONTAP data services in the initial configuration.
- Single NFS namespace: NetApp’s stated approach for presenting data while scaling metadata management and the data path independently.
NetApp’s collaboration announcement with Supermicro describes jointly validated AI infrastructure combining Supermicro rack-scale compute, networking, power, and liquid cooling with the NetApp platform. It also identifies AIPod with Supermicro as a separate validated converged infrastructure architecture for enterprise AI. These announcements describe offerings and design intent; they do not establish customer outcomes.
How to read the performance claims
NetApp presents Novus as a way to reduce data-related constraints in large GPU environments. Its product announcement says GPU utilization under traditional architectures can fall below 30% when systems cannot supply data quickly enough. That is a vendor assertion; the announcement does not cite a study or provide benchmark methodology for the figure.
NetApp chief product officer Syam Nair said, “AI factories struggle and GPU economics collapse when data can’t keep up.” This is the company’s rationale for the architecture, not evidence that Novus has achieved a particular utilization rate or return on investment in a customer deployment. The material available does not establish independently measured production performance, comparative results against named alternatives, or a named customer deployment.
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What the broader platform adds
NetApp’s September 29 overview frames its platform around production AI, data governance, and operational control. The company says its AI Data Services can support in-place, zero-copy data activation across ONTAP, StorageGRID, and non-NetApp storage. This is NetApp’s stated capability and positioning; it should not be confused with independent validation of a particular deployment or outcome. In discussing openness, Boko said: “We are not suggesting that you want to be inside a walled garden,” she said. “We are suggesting we are already there. Help us activate your data.”
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What the “sleeping giant” description means
“I believe that NetApp is, for some people, a sleeping giant,” Boko told SiliconANGLE. The phrase expresses the CMO’s view of the company’s opportunity as AI brings new buyers to data infrastructure. It is not an independently measured assessment of NetApp’s size, growth, competitive standing, or likelihood of success.
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For infrastructure teams evaluating the announcement, the useful questions are architectural: whether metadata and the data path can scale separately, how the design handles throughput and concurrency, whether a single namespace fits existing data and governance requirements, and how the components integrate with the organization’s environment. The announcements do not provide a balanced comparison with alternatives, pricing, geographic fulfillment details, or independent benchmarks, so they are not enough to rank Novus against other platforms or estimate customer savings.
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