Indonesia is moving forward with its “Golden 2045 Vision,” an ambitious plan to harness digital technologies while uniting government, businesses, startups, and academic institutions to boost productivity, efficiency, and innovation across various sectors.
A key pillar of this vision is the development of robust AI infrastructure.
In support of this goal, Indonesian telecom giant Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) has teamed up with Cisco and NVIDIA to help establish Indonesia’s AI Center of Excellence (CoE). Overseen by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs (Komdigi), the CoE is focused on advancing secure technologies, nurturing local talent, and driving innovation by collaborating closely with startups.
As part of the CoE, a new NVIDIA AI Technology Center will offer research support, NVIDIA Inception program benefits for eligible startups, and NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute training and certification to upskill local talent.
“At Indosat, we believe AI must be a force for inclusion, not just in access, but in opportunity.” – Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison President Director and CEO Vikram Sinha.
“With the support of global partners, we’re accelerating Indonesia’s path to economic growth by ensuring Indonesians are not just users of AI, but creators and innovators,” Sinha added.
“The AI era demands fundamental architectural shifts and a workforce with digital skills to thrive,” Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins said. “Together with Indosat, NVIDIA and Komdigi, Cisco will securely power the AI Center of Excellence, enabling innovation and skills development, and accelerating Indonesia’s growth.”
“Democratizing AI is more important than ever,” NVIDIA Senior Vice President of Telecom Ronnie Vasishta added. “Through the new NVIDIA AI Technology Center, we’re helping Indonesia build a sustainable AI ecosystem that can serve as a model for nations looking to harness AI for innovation and economic growth.”
The Indonesia AI CoE will comprise an AI factory that features full-stack NVIDIA AI infrastructure, including NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs, NVIDIA Cloud Partner reference architectures and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, as well as an intelligent security system powered by Cisco.
Called the Sovereign Security Operations Center Cloud Platform, the Cisco-powered system combines AI-based threat detection, localized data control and managed security services for the AI factory.
Building on the sovereign AI initiatives Indonesia’s technology leaders announced with NVIDIA last year, the CoE will bolster the nation’s AI strategy through four core pillars:
Sovereign Infrastructure: Establishing AI infrastructure for secure, scalable, high-performance AI workloads tailored to Indonesia’s digital ambitions.
Secure AI Workloads: Using Cisco’s intelligent infrastructure to connect and safeguard the nation’s digital assets and intellectual property.
AI for All: Giving hundreds of millions of Indonesians access to AI by 2027, breaking down geographical barriers and empowering developers across the nation.
Talent and Development Ecosystem: Aiming to equip 1 million people with digital skills in networking, security and AI by 2027.
With Indosat’s coverage across the archipelago, the company can reach hundreds of millions of Bahasa Indonesian speakers with its large language model (LLM)-powered applications.
For example, using Indosat’s Sahabat-AI collection of Bahasa Indonesian LLMs, the Indonesia government and Hippocratic AI are collaborating to develop an AI agent system that provides preventative outreach capabilities, such as helping women subscribers over the age of 50 schedule a mammogram. This can help prevent or combat breast cancer and other health complications across the population.
Separately, Sahabat-AI also enables Indosat’s AI chatbot to answer queries in the Indonesian language for various citizen and resident services. A person could ask about processes for updating their national identification card, as well as about tax rates, payment procedures, deductions and more.
In addition, a government-led forum is developing trustworthy AI frameworks tailored to Indonesian values for the safe, responsible development of artificial intelligence and related policies.
Looking forward, Indosat and NVIDIA plan to deploy AI-RAN technologies that can reach even broader audiences using AI over wireless networks.
