NetApp showcases its AI data platform at LEAP 2026, moving protection from the network perimeter to the core of records
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As enterprise AI adoption advances from initial experiments to full-scale operational production, organizations are confronting the challenge of managing and securing data across diverse environments. In this context, NetApp, a specialist in intelligent data infrastructure, announced its participation in LEAP 2026 at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center in Malham to showcase the capabilities of its unified platform for AI data preparation, shared storage, proactive protection, and comprehensive control across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
The rollout coincides with Saudi Arabia designating 2026 as the Year of AI, accelerating the institutional shift toward embedding intelligent technologies into core operations and building the capacity needed to scale their deployment. With enterprise data dispersed across disparate cloud and on-premises environments, real challenges arise regarding how to access, manage, and govern these digital assets without creating technical bottlenecks that disrupt critical applications.
The platform's architectural framework emphasizes that competitive advantage in advanced production does not depend solely on model strength, butrelies primarily on the speed of data provisioning, governance, and protection wherever hosted. These solutions aim to enable enterprises to open their records and operational data to more complex AI workloads while maintaining consistent performance across varied cloud and hybrid computing environments.
On the digital security front, the platform delivers AI-driven autonomous defense mechanisms designed toembed security within the data architecture itself, rather than relying solely on guarding the network perimeter. This approach is built on continuous threat detection and automated response to ensure rapid data recovery and operational continuity, a critical requirement for systems that rely on real-time data streaming and continuous inference pipelines.
For engineering teams and data leaders across the Gulf, Egypt, and the wider region, this evolution shifts the planning focus from hardware procurement and model experimentation to re-engineering storage pipelines and access governance. Organizations operating under stringent regulatory requirements must select solutions that combine on-premises storage with multiple clouds, wheredata protection efficiency and autonomous recovery speedbecome the defining standard for the stability of AI-enabled digital services.
The company is presenting these technologies in Hall 1 of the exhibition, which brings together enterprises, investors, and innovators across AI, financial technology, smart cities, healthcare technology, and education technology, offering practical pathways for building infrastructure capable of managing and securing AI data at scale.