The expanded collaboration combines HCLTech’s consumption-based infrastructure approach with NetApp’s data management technology, helping enterprises scale AI, GenAI and traditional workloads while improving flexibility, governance and efficiency.
HCLTech and NetApp have expanded their collaboration to provide enterprises with hybrid cloud storage-as-a-service (STaaS), targeting organisations looking to scale artificial intelligence, generative AI and data-intensive workloads without making large upfront infrastructure investments.
The offering combines HCLTech’s Utility for Everything (U4X) digital infrastructure framework with NetApp Keystone, a pay-as-you-go storage service. The model allows organisations to adjust storage capacity, performance and data services according to changing workload requirements.
The companies said the approach is designed to support both emerging AI applications and established enterprise workloads through a consumption-based infrastructure model. It also aims to help businesses align their technology investments more closely with actual usage and operational needs.
Supporting AI adoption at enterprise scale
The expanded offering is integrated with HCLTech’s AI Factory portfolio, which supports organisations across different stages of AI development and deployment. By bringing flexible infrastructure and data management capabilities together, the companies are targeting a key challenge faced by enterprises moving AI projects beyond experimentation.
The model is intended to help businesses prepare and manage data more effectively while maintaining governance requirements. It also allows workloads to operate closer to where data is stored, potentially reducing unnecessary data movement and improving operational efficiency.
Alvaro Celis, Chief Partner and Ecosystem Officer at NetApp, said, "We believe strong partnerships are built by co-creating technology offerings, business models, solutions and services that deliver meaningful customer value. This collaboration gives customers access to NetApp’s intelligent data infrastructure through a flexible, accessible business model, backed by HCLTech’s hands-on expertise."
The companies said the new STaaS model builds on deployments where their technologies have already been used to modernise data infrastructure and adopt consumption-based operating models.
For instance, a global food and beverage company used a consumption-based approach to improve operational flexibility while reducing upfront infrastructure investment. In another deployment, a European telecommunications provider used the technologies to increase scalability and resilience across distributed environments while meeting regulatory requirements.
Focus on flexible infrastructure for AI
As enterprises increasingly deploy AI workloads, infrastructure requirements can change rapidly depending on data volumes, computing needs and application usage. The companies believe a consumption-based storage model can provide greater flexibility as these requirements evolve.
Rampal Singh, Senior Vice President, Hybrid Cloud Business Unit at HCLTech, said, “Our collaboration with NetApp reflects our focus on helping enterprises scale AI in a pragmatic and efficient way. By combining flexible infrastructure models with strong data management capabilities, we are enabling clients to unlock the value of their data and accelerate their AI journeys.”
The expanded collaboration reflects the growing shift towards infrastructure-as-a-service models as enterprises seek to scale AI without overprovisioning resources. By combining storage, data management and consumption-based services, HCLTech and NetApp are positioning the offering as a way for businesses to move from AI pilots towards broader enterprise deployment.
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