NetApp Announces Intent to Acquire PEAK:AIO as Revenue Grows 30%

Key Facts

NetApp announced on September 25, 2026, its intent to acquire PEAK:AIO, in a move aimed at developing storage infrastructure for growing AI workloads. The company said the deal remains subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, and the announcement did not confirm that the acquisition had been completed. The deal aims to add specialized metadata services and parallel namespace technology to the ONTAP architecture. These additions are intended to support shared storage as GPU clusters and AI workloads expand. The deal announcement did not disclose its financial terms.

The announced technical concept is based on separating metadata from data, allowing metadata services to scale independently. NetApp says the architecture it is developing is designed to support trillions of files, exabyte-scale environments and large-scale parallel workloads. This responds to the needs of computing clusters that process large volumes of data in parallel. The company said metadata and parallel namespace technologies would enhance the ONTAP architecture. But the company also clarified that it is under no obligation to develop or deliver the products, integrations or features described in its forward-looking vision, and that technical plans may change without notice.

NetApp described PEAK:AIO as a Manchester-based AI software storage company and a pioneer in next-generation metadata architecture and high-performance parallel file systems. It said the company's platform runs on standard hardware, from a single server to exabyte scale. According to NetApp, this flexibility allows the platform to run across different infrastructure scales. Integrating the technology with ONTAP is the focus of the announced deal, which aims to expand metadata services and shared storage. The implementation of this vision remains dependent on development and integration that NetApp has not committed to delivering.

The proposed deal comes as NetApp reported growth in its quarterly results, with revenue of $2.025 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, compared with $1.559 billion in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year, a year-on-year increase of 30%. All-flash array revenue reached a record $1.3 billion, up 47% year on year. Public cloud revenue was $206 million, an increase of 28%. These figures reflect the quarter reported on September 2, and the deal announcement does not link this growth to the deal's timing or present it as a reason for the acquisition. As part of its AI strategy, the company also announced in September a multiyear collaboration with Google Cloud to provide data infrastructure for sovereign and private isolated cloud environments.

In the context of fiscal 2026 results, CEO George Kurian said the company's unified data platform and flexible offerings support customer transformations driven by AI. He added: "As enterprises expand their AI ambitions, our unified data platform and flexible offerings position us to support sustainable growth." The statement places the expansion of storage solutions within the company's broader effort to serve businesses increasing their use of AI. For the second quarter of fiscal 2027, NetApp expects revenue of between $2.025 billion and $2.175 billion and non-GAAP earnings of between $2.54 and $2.64 per share. For fiscal 2027, the company set its expected revenue range at $7.975 billion to $8.225 billion, and non-GAAP earnings per share at $9.73 to $10.03.