Still Lagging, Wamenkomdigi Nezar Reveals Indonesia's Challenge to Become AI Leader
JAKARTA - Deputy Minister of Communication and Digital, Nezar Patria, revealed that Indonesia still has several challenges to be a leader in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Referring to the UNCTAD's Technology and Innovation Report 2025, countries are grouped into four categories based on their capacity to adopt and utilize AI, namely Laggards, Partitioners, Creators, and Leaders.
Despite having a growing digital connectivity capacity, Nezar said that Indonesia is still in the laggards group in terms of AI skills readiness.
"Although Indonesia has capacity in terms of connections, Indonesia is still in the category of Laggards in terms of AI skills readiness. This condition is an obstacle for Indonesia to be in a Leader position," said Nezar at the AI Leadership Exchange 2026 event on Thursday, June 11 in Jakarta.
To encourage Indonesia's position, Nezar added, the government is preparing an AI development framework through the 5A approach, namely availability, affordability, awareness, ability, and agency.
In the initial phase, the focus is directed at providing broad and affordable access to AI through strengthening digital infrastructure and data governance.
Furthermore, increasing awareness and understanding of AI is important to accelerate the implementation of this technology in various sectors. According to Nezar, the need for digital talent is becoming increasingly crucial in this phase.
"The highest stage is the ability or ability and agency, the ability to act. In this stage, the focus is not only on using, but realizing strategic changes by utilizing AI where the state, business sector, and organizations are able to develop AI according to their needs," he explained.
Nezar emphasized that the transformation from laggards to leaders requires a strong AI ecosystem. Therefore, the government has prepared two main foundations, namely ethics and policies that are implemented through the AI Roadmap and AI Presidential Decree which are still being worked on.