NetApp, a provider of intelligent data infrastructure, held its INSIGHT Xtra Taipei 2025 conference in Taipei today (December 10). At the conference, in addition to formally outlining its data infrastructure vision for the Taiwan market and announcing the launch of its new AFX storage system and NetApp AI Data Engine to accelerate enterprise AI adoption, NetApp also announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Institute for Information Industry (III) to collaborate with technology companies such as Akamai, Cisco, and Red Hat to promote the development of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) technology, aiming to build the strongest cybersecurity defense in the AI era.
From Trials to Critical Missions: AFX and AIDE Help Enterprises Master the Essentials of AI
As AI applications gradually shift from early experimental stages to the "Agentic AI" stage, which handles critical tasks, Taiwanese companies are facing challenges such as data silos, time-consuming data preparation, and difficulty in expansion.
NetApp Taiwan General Manager Yu-Hsin Chu pointed out that NetApp's goal is to provide a comprehensive data platform to help businesses move beyond the experimental phase and transform AI into tangible productivity and revenue. To this end, NetApp offers two main technical solutions:
• Enterprise-class Decomposed Storage Architecture (NetApp AFX): By implementing AI-optimized modes on the NetApp AFX 1K storage system, enterprises can independently and linearly scale capacity and performance as needed. For demanding AI workloads, the AFX system can scale to 128 nodes, providing terabytes of bandwidth per second, and is NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD certified to meet the training needs of models with hundreds of billions of parameters.
Make data AI-ready (NetApp AI Data Engine, AIDE): Utilizing the NVIDIA AI Data Platform Reference Architecture, AIDE integrates NVIDIA accelerated computing and AI Enterprise software. With built-in semantic search, data vectorization, and protection mechanisms, AIDE simplifies complex data preparation steps, ensures data is always up-to-date, and removes duplicate content, making the AI data pipeline smoother.
A national PQC team has been formed to counter the "steal first, decrypt later" threat.
Besides AI infrastructure, cybersecurity was also a major focus of this conference. With the imminent arrival of the quantum computing era, existing encryption standards may be easily cracked. Hackers are adopting a "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" (HNDL) strategy, stealing currently encrypted data and waiting for future quantum computers to mature before decrypting it.
To mitigate such threats, NetApp announced the signing of an MOU with the Institute for Information Industry (III) to focus on promoting post-quantum cryptography (PQC). This collaboration brings together international giants such as Akamai, Cisco, F5, Palo Alto Networks, and Red Hat, as well as Taiwanese system integrators such as Lingqun Computer, Dunyang Technology, and Jingcheng Information to explore best practices for PQC.
NetApp emphasizes that it has integrated PQC into its global product portfolio, including:
• Strengthen the last line of defense:It employs FIPS 140-2 Level 2 self-encrypting hard drive and AES 256-bit transparent disk encryption.
• Dynamic key management:Automated key generation and rotation reduce vulnerability risks.
• Zero Trust Integration:Combine a data-centric zero-trust architecture to verify every access request.
The collaboration between NetApp and the Institute for Information Industry aims to bridge the gap between existing defense boundaries and future quantum threats, assisting Taiwan's sensitive industries such as finance and healthcare in strengthening their digital sovereignty defense posture.
