Danantara Boss Reveals Major Profit Opportunities for Indonesia from AI

Badan Pengelola Investasi Daya Anagata Nusantara (BPI Danantara) has spotlighted investments in the digital infrastructure sector. Danantara’s Chief Investment Officer, Pandu Sjahrir, stated that the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has simultaneously sparked greed and fear.

According to him, despite public fears regarding intelligent technology, AI remains a highly attractive prospect. However, everything related to AI requires energy.

“But you know, when you talk about artificial intelligence and all the opportunities that will come, there is one thing that actually becomes their backlog, which is energy,” he said at the Bank Mega Auditorium in Jakarta on Tuesday (7/4/2026).

This means that energy is key and can create opportunities for Indonesia. “Energy is AI. AI requires energy. That’s why I see a big opportunity for Indonesia,” he explained.

Pandu noted that Indonesia is a strong player in energy exports. “This is an opportunity, sir, on how we can use this chance to develop digital infrastructure,” he added.

Pandu pointed out that most people now use AI services like cloud and OpenAI more frequently than Google. This presents an opportunity for Indonesia to seriously expand investments in the energy sector.

“The high demand from digital infrastructure. In our case, sir, this is just an example; Singapore might need an extra 4-6 gigawatts just for data centres. Indonesia’s total as of today, including everything, is 6-1 gigawatts. The minimum needed in Indonesia is 10 gigawatts in the next few years. What is needed is renewable energy, mostly,” he revealed.

Pandu further explained that many major countries around the world are competing to become sources of affordable energy while also providing access to clean water. Thus, how to utilise energy or energy potential to obtain resources from the AI side, namely digital infrastructure.

“That is the opportunity that I find very interesting,” he concluded.