# NetApp and Emma Team to Bridge On-Prem Storage and Neocloud GPUs > NetApp and Emma Technologies partner to let enterprises extend on-premises data to rented GPUs without copying, with customers retaining full data control. - Published: 2026-10-26T13:56:20+00:00 - Section: Partnerships - Author: News Desk - URL: https://newsforagent.com/news/2026-10-26/netapp-emma-sovereign-ai-storage - Source: [SDxCentral](https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/netapp-and-emma-team-to-bridge-on-prem-storage-and-neocloud-gpus/) ## Key takeaways - NetApp announced a strategic collaboration with Luxembourg-based Emma Technologies to provide data-layer control for neoclouds. - NetApp's OnTap software for file and object storage will be used across Emma's multitenant environments. - Jurgen Hofkens, NetApp's CTO and VP for solutions engineering in EMEA and LATAM, said customers have 100% control of their data. [NetApp](https://akta.pro/company-profiles/00005nk/netapp) announced a strategic collaboration with Luxembourg-based Emma Technologies to provide data-layer control for neoclouds, letting enterprises extend on-premises data to Emma's rented GPUs without copying it. [SDxCentral](https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/netapp-and-emma-team-to-bridge-on-prem-storage-and-neocloud-gpus/) reported the partnership on October 26, 2026, from Berlin. Customers retain 100% data control, and NetApp plans to apply the model to other emerging infrastructure providers. ## How the NetApp and Emma Collaboration Works The multicloud platform will use NetApp's storage stack, including its OnTap software for both file and object storage across its multitenant environments. SDxCentral asked whether the deal represented a new logo, a paying customer, or a channel opportunity. "Yes, to all three of them," Jurgen Hofkens, NetApp's CTO and VP for solutions engineering in EMEA and LATAM, said at GTC Berlin last week. Hofkens described the go-to-market approach with neoclouds. "We say, we have a great product on its own; you probably should use it," he said. "These are the reasons, but 40, 50, sometimes 60% of enterprise unstructured data, depending on the market, already sits on the NetApp system, so what we can offer is a secure and cost-effective way [to] extend their data that they have [on-premises] with us and make it available to the GPUs they rent." Hofkens said partnerships like the one with Emma allow enterprises to be "dynamically sovereign," giving organizations the means to adapt their stack without getting locked into a provider or architecture. Customers can make existing data available to Emma's rented GPUs without having to copy it. "A project might be sovereign today, but by six months from now you might need a different model or you might need different accelerators," he said. Hofkens said customers have "100% of the control" over their data in the Emma partnership and others. "When they buy software, it's 100% theirs. It's 100% under their control," he said. He added that the lack of NetApp access to user data extends to customers who accidentally delete data and ask the vendor to recreate it: "The whole point of our security parameter is we can't access it. So yes, we can't help you." ## NetApp's Storage and AI Portfolio According to akta.pro [company records](https://akta.pro/company-data), NetApp launched NetApp AFX in 2025, a disaggregated AI storage system delivering up to 4 TB/s throughput and 1+ EB scale in a single cluster, engineered for AI-intensive workloads. The company launched NetApp AI Data Engine in 2024, providing real-time curation, vectorization, and semantic search with zero-copy access integrated into ONTAP for AI data pipelines. NetApp also launched NetApp Console in 2024 as a unified storage management plane across hybrid multicloud environments. ## Earlier NetApp Sovereign AI Moves On October 21, 2026, NetApp and [emma](https://akta.pro/company-profiles/00005qr/emma) announced a partnership to deliver sovereign AI for European businesses, combining NetApp's storage with emma's GPU and cloud platform, ITPro reported. On October 21, 2026, NetApp announced new capabilities enabling secure, in-place, zero-copy data activation for agentic AI, expanding AI Data Engine metadata discovery across enterprise data estates, Business & Financial reported. On October 19, 2026, NetApp and Oracle launched a managed cloud storage service for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, combining ONTAP data management to simplify AI and enterprise workload migration, Smallbiztrends reported. ## What Comes Next for NetApp and Emma Hofkens said NetApp's work with Emma looks set to be an example of how it plans to work with other emerging infrastructure providers, with others potentially following. He distinguished neoclouds into two tiers: those that build capacity for very large off-takers and those that serve enterprise customers, placing Emma in the latter camp. ## Companies in this story - [NetApp company profile](https://akta.pro/company-profiles/00005nk/netapp) · website: http://netapp.com - [emma company profile](https://akta.pro/company-profiles/00005qr/emma) · website: https://emma.ms --- News for Agent · https://newsforagent.com/llms.txt