Jakarta, Gizmology – At the end of February, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) event held in Barcelona, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison announced its collaboration with NVIDIA. Their ambition is to shape the technology landscape and position Indonesia as a global player in AI Cloud services.
This strategic partnership offers access to high-tech GPUs and high density data centers, empowering customers with AI and machine learning capabilities. This collaboration is aimed at driving the growth of Indonesia’s digital economy, creating a solid foundation for the advancement of the digital sector.
At that time, there were already a number of plans published, although they were not yet detailed, including plans to build a data center. The bright spot came from the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Kemkominfo). Minister of Communication and Information Budi Arie Setiadi stated that Nvidia in collaboration with PT Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison Tbk plans to build an AI Center in Solo Technopark, Solo City, Central Java in 2024.
USD 200 Million Investment to Build Indonesia AI Nation in Solo Technopark
He emphasized that Kominfo welcomes the commitment of American multinational technology company Nvidia in building the Indonesian Artificial Intelligence Nation or Artificial Intelligence (AI) Center.
“There is a commitment from Nvidia and Indosat to invest USD200 million or Rp3 Trillion to build Indonesia AI Nation in Solo Technopark,” said Budi during a media event at the Ministry of Communication and Information Office, Jakarta (03/04).
The minister, who is also the Chairman of Projo (Pro Jokowi), explained that the concept of building an AI Center boils down to telecommunications infrastructure and human resources or digital talent.
“It has been conveyed by Mr Vikram Sinha (CEO of Indosat) to the Mayor of Solo (Gibran Rakabuming Raka) that Indosat and Nvidia are committed to investing in infrastructure and improving human resources. (Why in Solo) because the human resources are good, the conditions are ready, there is 5G there too,” he explained.
Although not explicitly stated, it is implied that the choice of Solo was for political reasons.Since Jokowi, who hails from Solo, took office as President, the city has indeed become a favorite. A number of companies held various events and opened offices in Solo.
Deputy Minister of Communication and Information Nezar Patria added that Nvidia’s cooperation with the Government has been launched since several years ago to improve the quality of Indonesia’s digital talents in the field of AI.
“If I’m not mistaken, in 2022 – 2023 Nvidia is also committed to helping the education of nearly 20 thousand Indonesian students to improve their skills in the field of AI as part of digital talent development in Indonesia,” he explained.
According to the Deputy Minister, the construction of the AI Center is a follow-up to Nvidia’s long-term commitment in Indonesia through a five-year cooperation.
“This is what is sharpened again with the Indonesian AI Nation, I think it is very strategic and Nvidia itself is a company that we know has good performance in the AI industry landscape at the global level,” he said.
Deputy Minister Nezar Patria considers the construction of an AI Center in Indonesia in collaboration with Nvidia strategic. “So this cooperation is very strategic and we hope that there will be technology transfer as well so that we will not only become users, but later we can become part of the AI players that are taken into account both in the region and at the global level,” he said.
Indosat and Nvidia Collaboration in AI Sector
MWC 2024 event marks Indosat and NVIDIA’s strategic partnership in AI sector. Indosat through Lintasarta subsidiary becomes the first NVIDIA Cloud Provider Partner in Indonesia. They will bring NVIDIA’s full-stack AI platform to businesses in the country and provide access to the latest GPU technology from NVIDIA with high-density data centers connected to the public internet with speeds of up to 400 Gbps.
Later, Indosat and Lintasarta’s AI Cloud service supported by NVIDIA will develop a new generation of data centers that are sustainable, hyper-connected and equipped with artificial intelligence. Lintasarta’s GPU-as-a-Service (Deka GPU) provides access to the most powerful AI/Machine Learning capabilities specifically designed for heavy computing jobs, including the provision of bare metal infrastructure, platforms, and services. This capability will ensure reliable cloud supercomputing services, as well as utilize AI to create innovations for its users.
Today, AI supercomputing is critical infrastructure, and this collaboration will be a strong foundation for the journey to empower Indonesia to become an AI-enabled nation. Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison group will leverage its data center to create a sovereign AI platform to drive cross-ecosystem innovation.
This collaboration is envisioned to position Indonesia as a global AI Cloud leader, bringing technological advancements and innovation to the country. With AI capabilities in the cloud ecosystem, Indosat is expected to drive the growth of Indonesia’s digital economy, providing a solid foundation for the growing digital sector. The application of this cutting-edge AI technology is expected to increase productivity while reducing operational costs across industries.
The technology will be implemented in data centers operated by BDx Indonesia, a joint venture of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Lintasarta, and BDx Data Centers.
In addition, Indosat will also integrate the NVIDIA Blackwell platform into its infrastructure. The adoption of the NVIDIA Blackwell platform will emphasize Indosat’s steps in encouraging the use of AI and machine learning in Indonesia as a driver of innovation, economic growth, and national sovereignty. With the transformative technology of the Blackwell platform, Indosat is poised to bring a wave of innovation in AI cloud services in Indonesia.
Through the integration of the NVIDIA Blackwell platform into its infrastructure, Indosat is empowering its business ecosystem and preparing the ground for Indonesia to become a global leader in sovereign AI. By harnessing the processing power of NVIDIA’s Blackwell platform, Indosat can unlock new opportunities, helping businesses across a wide range of industries harness the full potential of AI and machine learning as drivers of productivity, efficiency and innovation.
Indosat will utilize NVIDIA’s Tensor Core GPUs based on the Blackwell platform, to provide massive acceleration to inference workloads, enabling real-time performance for resource-intensive multitrillion-parameter language models. Selain itu, GPU Tensor Core NVIDIA, yang mencakup DPU NVIDIA BlueField-3, akan memungkinkan percepatan jaringancloud,composable storage, keamanan zero-trust, dan elastisitas komputasi GPU dihyperscale AI clouds.
NVIDIA’s Tensor Core GPUs, also based on the Blackwell platform, will be available on the NVIDIA DGX Cloud. This AI supercomputing service gives enterprises direct access to the infrastructure and software needed to train sophisticated generative AI models.
