Nvidia to Build $200M AI Center in Indonesia, Boost Presence in Region

Nvidia is building a $200 million AI center in Indonesia as it looks to boost its presence in the region. 

The Indonesian Ministry of Communications and Information said Nvidia will build an AI center at Solo Technopark in the city of Surakarta, about eight hours from Jakarta.

Nvidia is building the site in partnership with local telco firm Indosat and will open later this year.

The center will focus on powering telecommunications infrastructure. Indosat is already working with Nvidia, leveraging its hardware, including the new Blackwell series GPUs, in its existing infrastructure.

"This collaboration is very strategic and we hope that there will also be technology transfer so that we are not just users, but can later become part of the AI players that are taken into account both regionally and at the global level," said Nezar Patria, deputy minister of communication and informatics of Indonesia

Nvidia’s potential work with Indosat marks its latest effort to expand into Southeast Asia.

In January the company announced it teamed up with Singapore-based telco Singtel to bring its AI offerings to the region.

Nvidia’s hardware is powering Singtel’s data centers, billing them as “sovereign national resources” that would allow local startups and government agencies to leverage AI solutions

Related:Nvidia Unveils Blackwell GPUs to Power Massive AI Models

Omdia Chief Analyst Lian Jye Su said generative AI is set to expand in the region with Nvidia pushing local efforts.

“Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been championing the concept of AI sovereignty and I think it has already emerged in China, Japan and South Korea, the next wave will come in India, Indonesia, Singapore and perhaps Vietnam.”

Su said generative AI in Asia and Oceania can be viewed from two perspectives.

“First is generative AI sovereignty,” Su said. “Countries in Asia and Oceania are eager to keep up with AI advancement without sacrificing stability and security. As such, generative AI development and deployment using local data, infrastructure and models has emerged to be a more popular approach.”

“Second is the accessibility of generative AI solutions. Asian and Oceania countries are very ethnically and culturally diverse, with many still considered developing economies. The existing generative AI solutions are designed using Western languages and values, creating the risk of benefiting only a certain segment of these societies with the right knowledge and digital access. As such, these countries are encouraging local ecosystems to develop solutions dedicated to local languages, culture and use cases.”

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