Danantara Begins Semiconductor Investment, Names Off-takers
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - The Daya Anagata Nusantara Investment Management Agency (BPI Danantara) has begun investing in the semiconductor industry. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Danantara Indonesia, Sigit Puji Santosa, explained that Danantara has even recorded enthusiastic demand for cooperation.
“We are investing quite substantially. There is one platform that is quite good; 94% of the semiconductor platform uses partners that we have selected. The remaining 6% is open source,” he said during MINDialogue 2026 “Commodities for the Nation: Strategy for Strengthening Mineral Reserves for Indonesia’s Economic Stability and Sovereignty” on Thursday (13/8/2026).
He explained that Indonesia possesses critical minerals needed by the world. According to him, the current global trend requires rare earth elements (REE) as an exclusive and expensive commodity.
REE is a group of 17 chemical elements that serve as crucial and irreplaceable raw materials in modern semiconductor chip components, electronic devices, electric vehicles, and defence technology.
“So the off-takers, in my view, are not only for global or domestic use, but the global market is also ready. Moreover, colleagues who are involved with Article 33, Article 33 on minerals, colleagues in this room, I think this is an extraordinary global potential,” he said.
Sigit emphasised that REE management in Indonesia will be carried out directly by PT Perusahaan Mineral Nasional (Perminas). According to him, the company is currently building Perminas as a company that will manage REE while also promoting the development of its downstream industries, including the permanent magnet industry.
“We at Danantara are also building Perminas, which will manage and develop the magnet industry. Later there will be traction motors and even car motors,” said Sigit.
On the other hand, Sigit outlined that the main challenge in mineral downstreaming is technology. So far, incoming partners have not focused on technology transfer, but rather only want to take raw materials.
“Therefore, the technology process remains the first challenge. However, actually, the technology gap is no longer significant for some minerals, but the widest gap is in minerals used for semiconductors. Also for some special minerals, the gap is indeed quite far, because only the most advanced countries can handle them,” Sigit detailed.
To address this, Danantara has taken strategic partnership steps with universities to build research and development centres.
This step is also supported by President Prabowo, who has gathered 2,600 rectors and deans to be offered 31 to 40 industrialisation projects from Danantara. According to him, this is done so that universities can identify their respective strengths to be invited to collaborate.