Indonesia to establish AI center of excellence with support from Nvidia, Cisco and Indosat

The artificial intelligence sprint is on, and not just within companies: This race is being held at a geographic level as well.

The Middle East has been very active with AI, as has India and, of course, the U.S. This week the Indonesian government is taking a major step toward establishing itself as an AI thought leader and achieving its sovereign AI goals by supporting the efforts of Nvidia Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and the Indonesian telecommunications leader Indosat to establish an AI Center of Excellence in the country.

The project will build on sovereign AI initiatives announced last year by Indonesian tech leaders and Nvidia. The CoE will support Indonesian AI research, develop local AI talent, and help startup companies deliver innovations to build out the nation’s AI infrastructure.

With the support of Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs (Komdigi), the CoE will include a new Nvidia AI Technology Center that will leverage Nvidia’s Inception program, which provides technical expertise and co-marketing support to startups. It also will offer training and certification from the Deep Learning Institute to help nurture local AI talent.

Vikram Sinha, head of Indosat, said the company believes “AI must be a force for inclusion — not just in access, but in opportunity. With the support of global partners, we’re accelerating Indonesia’s path to economic growth by ensuring Indonesians are not just users of AI, but creators and innovators.”

Golden 2045 vision

The CoE will include an AI factory, which is specialized infrastructure to create value from data by managing the entire AI lifecycle. It also will feature a full-stack Nvidia AI infrastructure ranging from the company’s Blackwell graphics processing units and Cloud Partner reference architectures to its AI Enterprise software.

The center’s Sovereign Security Operations Center Cloud Platform is a Cisco-powered system that combines AI-based threat detection, localized data control and managed services for the AI factory.

The CoE is part of an Indonesian initiative called Golden Vision 2045. The project is focused on using digital technologies to bring together government, enterprises, startups, and higher education to drive cross-industry productivity, efficiency, and innovation. The target date is significant as 2045 will mark 100 years of Indonesian independence.

Core AI pillars

The CoE has four key goals for driving Indonesia’s AI strategy:

Sovereign infrastructure: To bolster Indonesia’s digital future and cultivate domestic innovation, Indosat and Nvidia are collaborating on the expansion of the nation’s premier sovereign AI infrastructure. This new platform is engineered for scale and high performance, emphasizing national self-sufficiency in AI. It will provide a secure, high-performance environment for AI operations, specifically tailored to help Indonesia achieve its digital aspirations. A key component of this effort is Indosat’s AI Factory, Lintasarta, which will be the first entity in Southeast Asia to integrate the Nvidia GB200 NVL72, specifically designed to enhance generative AI and high-performance computing capabilities.

Secure AI workloads: To protect Indonesia’s digital assets and intellectual property, Cisco will provide the infrastructure to connect and secure the countries information and assets. This infrastructure will have security features embedded within the network, forming a resilient backbone for the nation’s AI Center of Excellence. Central to this effort is a Sovereign Security Operations Center Cloud Platform, which marks the first time Splunk and Cisco’s Managed Security Services Solutions have been used together in Indonesia. This SOC will combine AI-driven threat detection with local data controls and effortless integration with national systems. This empowers Indonesian organizations to effectively secure their digital holdings and meet regulatory requirements.

AI for all: The AI Center of Excellence is on a mission to ensure hundreds of millions of Indonesians gain access to AI by 2027. This will be made possible using by Indosat’s widespread mobile network infrastructure. This push is fundamentally about democratizing AI, removing geographical divides, and fostering a new generation of empowered developers throughout the country. The ultimate vision is a future where AI’s benefits are universally shared among all citizens.

Talent and ecosystem development: The center is making a substantial investment in Indonesia’s human capital, aiming to train 1 million individuals in critical digital areas like networking, security and AI by 2027. This ambitious target is supported by both Nvidia and Cisco. Nvidia will facilitate this through its AI Technology Center for research, its Inception program for startups, and its Deep Learning Institute for professional development. For its part, Cisco will leverage its Networking Academy to deliver training, as part of its commitment to upskill 500,000 Indonesians by 2030. These combined efforts are designed to create a future-ready workforce that can drive Indonesia’s digital economy.

Already, more than two dozen independent software vendors and startups are using Indosat’s AI infrastructure to develop technologies for accelerating and improving workflows in areas such as higher education and research, food security, bureaucratic reform, smart cities, mobility and healthcare.

Plans include Indosat and Nvidia developing and deploying AI-RAN (artificial intelligence radio access network) technologies capable of reaching larger audiences by using AI over wireless networks. And the government is developing trustworthy AI frameworks consistent with Indonesian values for the safe, responsible development of AI and related policies.

This type of public-private partnership could serve as a blueprint for development and deployment of AI-driven initiatives in other countries, which would help level the playing field to help ensure smaller and developing nations can take advantage of the AI revolution.

The investment Indonesia is making could pay big dividends in a short period of time and AI promises to reshape the global economy, like the way the Internet did. By investing in its citizens, Indonesia is ensuring as AI evolves and gets embedded into the fabric of the way we live, it will be ready to capitalize on the opportunity.

 Zeus Kerravala is a principal analyst at ZK Research, a division of Kerravala Consulting. He wrote this article for SiliconANGLE.

Photo: Indosat