Komdigi Welcomes the Development of the Largest AI Factory in Southeast Asia in Indonesia

Minister of Communication and Information Meutya Hafid with President Director and CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison Vikram Sinha (photo: dok. Komdigi)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Communication and Digital welcomes the launch of Zankore by Indosat, a collaboration initiative between Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Ooredoo Group, Nokia, and NVIDIA to build the largest AI Factory in Southeast Asia in Indonesia.

The artificial intelligence (AI) computing infrastructure is projected to have a capacity of up to 1 gigawatt (GW) in three years and become the foundation for the development of AI services for Indonesia and the region.

The Minister of Communication and Information, Meutya Hafid, stated that the collaboration of the four global technology companies could be a strong signal of the world's increasing confidence in Indonesia's digital economic prospects.

"This investment shows the world's increasing confidence in the future of Indonesia's digital economy, as well as strengthening Indonesia's position as a high-value technology investment destination," said Meutya, quoted on Monday, August 10.

AI Factory is a large-scale computing infrastructure that provides processing power to develop and operate various artificial intelligence services.

Unlike conventional data centers, the AI Factory integrates the entire AI value chain in one ecosystem, from data center infrastructure that is ready to support AI computing, high-performance GPUs, data storage networks and systems, to GPU-as-a-Service services, orchestration, workload management, and end-to-end AI operations.

Based on global practices, the construction of an AI Factory on a full scale requires a very large investment. A number of international studies estimate that investment needs reach around 50 million US dollars for every 1 megawatt (MW) of end-to-end AI computing capacity.

With a target capacity of 1 gigawatt (1,000 MW), the construction of the AI Factory in Indonesia is one of the largest AI infrastructure investments ever announced in the Southeast Asian region.

The initial phase of construction is targeted to begin in the first half of 2027 in Batang, Central Java, with an initial capacity of around 200 megawatts (MW). The infrastructure will continue to be developed until it reaches the target capacity of 1 gigawatt.

In addition to building computing infrastructure, Zankore will also develop and host Sahabat-AI, an open-source Indonesian large language model (LLM) that has 70 billion parameters and supports various regional languages, including Indonesian, Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, and Batak.

The platform is also designed to provide Token-as-a-Service services, so that the use of AI computing can be accessed more widely by the public, MSMEs, ministries and agencies, and application developers at a more affordable cost.

"What is being built is not just a data center or computing infrastructure. This is the foundation of a complete national AI ecosystem, ranging from computing capacity, AI services, to the development of Indonesian language models that can be used by various sectors," explained Meutya.

He hopes that the presence of the AI Factory will strengthen Indonesia's position as a regional AI Hub because it is able to serve national and regional needs.

In addition to AI Factory, Meutya revealed that the construction of the first GPU manufacturing facility in Indonesia is also underway in Cikarang and is targeted to be inaugurated in December.

According to him, the presence of this facility will strengthen the supply chain of the national AI industry, ranging from computing infrastructure to supporting industries.