Indonesia unveils AI Center of Excellence to increase adoption
After months of planning, Indonesia has launched a national AI Center of Excellence designed to accelerate the mainstream adoption of emerging technologies.
According to a local news outlet report, Indonesia's Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs will spearhead the AI Center of Excellence initiative. The Ministry is teaming up with several entities, including Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), Ooredoo Hutchison, and Indosat (NASDAQ: PTITF), for technical and commercial direction.
The Center of Excellence will aim to establish Indonesia's sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. At the top of the list of priorities is digital inclusivity for Indonesian residents, which will be supported by training programs on AI and data science.
Furthermore, the newly minted AI Center of Excellence will support local AI innovation rather than a full dependency on foreign AI companies. To achieve this, the Ministry unveiled a secure AI regulatory sandbox for innovators to test real-world solutions before a commercial rollout.
Local AI firms will have access to accelerators and an enterprise hub to offer a level playing field with foreign technology companies. One key area of focus for the Center of Excellence is the rollout of a national regulatory framework for AI, with the initiative setting up a think-tank for ethical AI policies.
To maintain data sovereignty, Indonesia's Center of Excellence will pursue the development of national large language models (LLMs), promoting local values and cultural nuances.
Apart from triggering higher adoption metrics, the initiative extends to securing digital assets. Cisco's infrastructure will support a Sovereign Security Operations Center (SOC), offering advanced data control and threat detection on a national scale.
Indonesian enterprises holding digital assets can lean on SOC to secure their holdings and achieve regulatory compliance relating to custody services. Cisco will also support the training objectives of the AI Center of Excellence through its Networking Academy, eyeing the upskilling of 500,000 Indonesians before the end of the decade.
On the other hand, Nvidia is providing research support via its AI Technology Center and participating in digital technology education and startup acceleration through its Deep Learning Institute and Inception programs.
Pulling significant investment in emerging technologies
Before the AI Center of Excellence rollout, Indonesia had attracted significant foreign capital inflows. In 2024, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) pledged $1.7 billion to improve Indonesia's cloud infrastructure and planned to train over 800,000 residents on emerging technologies. Meanwhile, Nvidia has partnered with Indosat to build a $200M AI center to drive growth and deepen the local talent pool. Despite these efforts, regulators are proceeding with caution, scrambling to roll out strict legislation to govern the operations of AI service providers.
Meta to splurge billions to build new AI data centers in the US
In other news, Meta (NASDAQ: META) has confirmed that it intends to build new AI data centers across the U.S., which could cost the technology giant hundreds of billions of dollars.
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the incoming AI infrastructures are gigawatt clusters comprising several data centers consuming over 1,000 megawatts of power. Zuckerberg revealed via Threads that a cluster dubbed Hyperion can scale up to 5 gigawatts in the near future, putting Meta ahead in the AI race.
The CEO disclosed that the largest clusters will cover roughly the landmass of Manhattan, with Meta eyeing locations in Louisiana and Ohio. In his statement, Zuckerberg confirmed that the first of the incoming data centers will go live as early as next year, while Hyperion will be fully online before the end of the decade.
'We're building multiple more titan clusters as well,' said Zuckerberg. 'Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan.'
Meta's plans to launch new AI data centers are tipped to run into hundreds of billions of dollars, but Zuckerberg says the company has the cash reserves to achieve its targets. Zuckerberg cites growing financial results from Meta's core advertising business that raked in revenues of $165 billion in 2024.
'We have the capital from our business to do this,' remarked Zuckerberg.
Apart from spending on infrastructure, Meta has invested heavily on talent acquisition, offering millions in sign-on bonuses to new employees. Additionally, Meta's newly organized Superintelligence Labs is tipped to spearhead the company's foray into AI.
Meta's 2025 capital expenditure has surged to $72 billion as the company seeks to edge out OpenAI and Google in the race to achieve Superintelligence. Before the heightened spending, Meta had recorded success with its open-source large language models (LLM) and seamless integration into its social media platforms.
Concerns trail data center push
Experts are raising concerns over the electricity consumption of data centers supporting AI and emerging technologies. Several countries like India and the Philippines are building out new large-scale data centers amid the sustainability concerns raised by energy experts.
Currently, a study claims that AI chip manufacturing has derailed climate progress in East Asia, with electricity usage spiking by 350% since 2023. Furthermore, UNESCO is pushing to stifle the carbon footprint from AI data centers and chip manufacturing processes.
In order for artificial intelligence (AI) to work right within the law and thrive in the face of growing challenges, it needs to integrate an enterprise blockchain system that ensures data input quality and ownership—allowing it to keep data safe while also guaranteeing the immutability of data. Check out CoinGeek's coverage on this emerging tech to learn more why Enterprise blockchain will be the backbone of AI .
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