JAKARTA - The National Economic Council (DEN) targets the national launch of a digital social protection system (perlinsos) based on artificial intelligence (AI) in October-November 2026. This initiative is part of an effort to transform social protection services to be faster, more targeted, and transparent.
The success of the digitalization trial of perlinsos in Banyuwangi is an important foundation for expanding the implementation of the program to 42 regencies/cities and one province in Indonesia.
This development was discussed in the Coordination Meeting of the Government Digital Transformation Acceleration Committee (KPTDP) chaired by the Chairman of the KPTDP and Chairman of DEN Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, on Wednesday, June 17. In the meeting, the KPTDP also evaluated the implementation of the limited trial which is currently taking place in Surabaya and Bali.
Luhut explained that the government has now understood the various problems that arise in the registration and digitization of AI-based public services.
According to him, the experience from Banyuwangi and the pilot project in 42 regions will be an important resource in the implementation of the system nationally.
"So now we understand the anatomy of the problem in registration, then in AI-based digitization in the government of the Republic of Indonesia, and I think this will be a success story or legacy of President Prabowo if all this happens," he said in a press conference, Wednesday, June 17.
He revealed that President Prabowo Subianto is scheduled to directly review the pilot project on July 6-9, 2026, with the location still being considered between Surabaya, Banyuwangi, or Bali.
"The schedule was agreed upon, we will propose to the President for July 6, 7, 8, 9, he will see later in Surabaya, Banyuwangi with Bali, which he will choose," he said.
In addition, Luhut also targeted that all pilot areas could complete the registration process for participants by the end of July.
"We also agree that these 42 pilot districts, if they can, by the end of July they have completed registration. So we know how many millions, that is 35 million, and later in October-November the President will launch it nationally for 541 districts," he explained.
He hopes that 80-90 percent of the system will be operational by the end of the year so that the President has a more accurate database for policymaking.
Luhut emphasized that the development of the system was carried out by young Indonesian talents who were directly involved in the process of digitizing the government.
Regarding its use, Luhut said the system was not only used for social assistance (bansos) distribution, but also various other government programs.
He added that the implementation would be carried out gradually as the data updating process continued.
"We will try to start gradually. Later the Minister of Social Affairs will do it. We will see our data is ready, maybe by the end of July we can be gradually updating the data," he said.
Regarding the possibility of using data for the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program, Luhut said his party would still conduct further studies, and the data collected would later become the basis for recommendations to the President before the policy was determined.
"MBG, I think later we will see what the policy is. Later, our advice with the existing data, we will recommend to the President, so that the President will make a decision based on accurate data," he said.
Luhut explained that to support the operation of the system, the government temporarily utilized the National Data Center (PDN) infrastructure and facilities available at the Ministry of Communication and Digital (Komdigi).
On the other hand, he said his party was also preparing a design to develop server capacity through cooperation with Telkom so as not to be entirely dependent on the state budget.
"Later we will play Telkom so that we are not involved with the APBN. But at the end we will probably try to see because now even if we want to make GPUs, we can't buy them because the demand is so high. So we are thinking hard now how to make this complete," he said.
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