As Southeast Asian nations race to harness the potential of artificial intelligence, Indonesia has launched its AI Center of Excellence, a national initiative designed to boost its AI capabilities and global competitiveness.
The centre is a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs (Komdigi), digital telecommunications provider Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH), and technology heavyweights Nvidia and Cisco.
It aims to advance AI access and innovation across Indonesia. It also seeks to turn the region’s largest economy from being an AI consumer into a hub of innovation, with the new centre driving AI development across sectors from government and startups to rural communities and large corporations.
The centre will use Nvidia’s technology, secured by Cisco’s network infrastructure, and Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison’s extensive reach to realise the country’s ambitions.
“We want Indonesia to be more than just a technology market – we want it to be a home for innovation and the creation of AI technologies that are relevant to the nation’s needs,” said Meutya Hafid, Indonesia’s Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs.
The centre will include:
- a secure AI sandbox for developing real-world industry solutions
- certification training for tens of thousands in AI and data science
- an accelerator for local AI startups
- an enterprise hub to co-create industry AI use cases
- a platform to develop national large language models
- a national think tank to guide ethical AI policy rooted in local values
At the core of Indonesia’s AI plans is the building of the country’s first sovereign AI infrastructure, developed in partnership with Nvidia and Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison. This high-performance platform is designed to support large-scale AI workloads with speed, security, and scalability.
A milestone in this effort is Indosat’s AI Factory Lintasarta that will integrate the Nvidia GB200 NVL72 graphics processing units (GPUs), making it the first deployment of this advanced AI and high-performance computing (HPC) system in Southeast Asia. The infrastructure will lay the groundwork to accelerate generative AI applications.
To secure these AI efforts, Cisco will provide a secure, intelligent infrastructure to protect the nation’s AI ecosystem and intellectual property. Key to this effort is the creation of a Sovereign Security Operations Center (SOC) Cloud Platform.
The SOC will combine AI-driven threat detection, localised data controls, and seamless integration with national infrastructure, to help Indonesian organisations stay compliant and be resilient in the face of emerging cyber threats.
Recognising the need to democratise the use of AI, the centre aims to bring AI access to hundreds of millions of Indonesians by 2027, through Indosat’s extensive mobile network.
To build AI capability, the centre is tasked with training one million Indonesians in AI, cybersecurity, and networking by 2027. Nvidia will contribute research expertise through its AI Technology Center, offer start-up support via its Inception programme, and provide AI certifications through its Deep Learning Institute.
In addition, Cisco is committed to upskill 500,000 Indonesians by 2030 through its Networking Academy. Together, this combination of cross-sector and public-private collaboration marks an important step forward for Indonesia’s digital ambitions.
