GCL ET Explores Opening AI Data Centre in Indonesia

Southeast Asia is a key region in GCL ET’s international AI data centre strategy, particularly Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. Fanzhong Zeng, Head of Strategic Development Center at GCL Energy Technology, stated in Beijing on Monday (29/6) that Indonesia is one of the markets receiving the company’s attention, alongside Malaysia and Thailand, due to its proximity to Singapore, digital economic growth, and supportive energy resource potential. He noted that Singapore’s position as a digital infrastructure and data centre hub in Asia is driving new project development in neighbouring countries, including Indonesia, given Singapore’s land and electricity capacity constraints. The Suzhou-based company is actively exploring AI data centre business opportunities in Malaysia and Indonesia with local partners to support industry development. Zeng explained that the opportunity to open AI data centres is not only related to computing needs but also to the availability of stable, green, and efficient energy. ‘Each market has a different energy structure, customer needs, and industrial ecosystem. Therefore, we will not simply copy one identical model, but work with local partners to find a cooperation model that suits local market conditions,’ he said. GCL ET is developing integrated solutions for AI data centre projects through an approach that combines wind, solar, energy storage, gas-fired power generation, and computing infrastructure in a single system. This approach aims to address the challenges of AI data centre development, especially in regions where grid capacity is not yet always able to quickly support large-scale data centre needs. He said that the global growth of AI is continuously increasing the need for computing power, leading the company to see an increasingly close relationship between energy and computing. ‘The current AI wave aligns with our strategy to integrate energy and computing power,’ Zeng added. There are two main directions in this integration strategy: first, ‘powering computing’, where GCL ET utilises its capabilities in energy generation, energy management, and electricity trading to provide cheaper, reliable, and environmentally friendly energy solutions for AI data centres. The second direction is ‘empowering energy with AI’, using AI to improve efficiency in the energy sector, including the management of renewable energy plants, electric vehicle charging stations, electricity trading systems, and load management. ‘By combining these two approaches, we are building a closed-loop ecosystem between energy and computing power,’ he said. Since 2023, GCL ET has begun investing in computing services with a value of approximately 800 million RMB (around Rp2.1 trillion), including AI computing infrastructure based on NVIDIA A800 and H800 systems. Previously known as an energy investment and services company, GCL ET is now expanding its business scope to become a technology-based service provider integrating energy, computing, and electricity trading.