Why NetApp is a founding member of the Open Secure AI Alliance

Artificial intelligence is transforming how organizations operate, innovate, and defend against cyber threats. As AI capabilities continue to advance, security teams are being pushed to adapt quickly to a landscape where both cyber defenders and attackers have access to increasingly powerful tools.

I believe this moment presents tremendous opportunity, but it also brings real responsibility.The pace of change is accelerating, and the security challenges ahead are too complex for any one company to solve alone. From my perspective, the organizations that will be most successful in this next phase of AI security are the ones willing to collaborate openly, learn quickly, and share what works with others.

Why open collaboration matters

That is why I’m proud that NetApp is participating in the Open Secure AI Alliance, alongside NVIDIA and other industry leaders, to help advance security research, defensive guidance, and open tools that make AI systems easier to test, secure, and trust.

From a security perspective, openness matters because it gives cyber defenders more visibility into how AI systems behave, more opportunities to test and improve them, and more ways to share fixes as threats evolve. Threat actors already share techniques and learn from one another, allowing them to adapt quickly. As AI introduces new ways for threats to scale, security professionals need to engage in the same level of collaboration.

Security for the broader ecosystem

As CISO, I see every day how quickly AI is changing the threat landscape, and how difficult it can be for many organizations to keep pace. Not every small business, school, public institution, or healthcare organization has the resources to fund advanced AI security research on its own. That is why participation from larger organizations like ours matters. By sharing the lessons we’ve learned defending our own environments, we hope to help strengthen security not just for ourselves, but for the broader ecosystem facing the same threats with fewer resources.

Think of it this way. A school district may not have AI security experts on staff. A small business may not have a dedicated threat intelligence function. A public agency may not have the resources to evaluate every new AI-driven threat as it emerges. Yet each of these organizations is still responsible for protecting sensitive information, delivering critical services, and maintaining the trust of the communities they serve.

That gap between responsibility and resources is exactly where open collaboration can make a big difference. By bringing together technology leaders, researchers, and security practitioners, the Open Secure AI Alliance helps turn shared knowledge into guidance and tools more organizations can use.

Building a stronger foundation for trusted AI

For NetApp, and for me as CISO, participating in this consortium is about helping build a stronger foundation for trusted AI: one grounded in secure, resilient data infrastructure, open research, shared tools, and resources that all cyber defenders can use in practice.

Explore more about the Open Secure AI Alliance and the work underway.