HIPPI South Jakarta Chair: Collaboration with Arm Must Be Indonesia's Gateway to Global Semiconductor Industry Map
Indonesia’s planned cooperation with Arm Ltd, a British chip design company that is one of the most influential players in the global semiconductor industry, represents a strategic momentum for Indonesia to strengthen national technological capacity through knowledge transfer and semiconductor talent development.
Azka Aufary Ramli, Chairman of HIPPI Jakarta Selatan, views collaboration with Arm as an important step for Indonesia to begin entering the global chip technology ecosystem, which has long been dominated by developed nations.
Arm is known as a company that designs processor architecture widely used in various modern electronic devices. Arm technology currently forms the foundation for more than 99% of smartphones worldwide and is used in various strategic sectors such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
“Cooperation with Arm must be understood as a gateway for Indonesia to accelerate semiconductor technology transfer. This is not merely a technology investment, but an opportunity to build national engineering capacity in chip design,” said Azka Aufary Ramli.
Globally, the semiconductor industry is one of the most strategic technology sectors. The current global semiconductor market value is approaching USD 800 billion and is projected to reach USD 1 trillion before 2030 with the growth of artificial intelligence technology, electric vehicles, and digital infrastructure.
In the value chain of the global semiconductor industry, chip design is an extremely important stage as it determines the performance, energy efficiency, and computing capability of an electronic device. Companies like Arm play a crucial role because the processor architecture they develop is used by many chip manufacturers worldwide.
According to Azka, cooperation with Arm offers strategic opportunities for Indonesia in several important aspects.
Transfer of Chip Design Technology Knowledge: Collaboration with Arm can open access for Indonesia to modern processor design technology as well as software and design methodologies that are global standards in the semiconductor industry.
Development of National Semiconductor Talent: Indonesia has considerable potential in developing human resources in the field of engineering and information technology. Through this cooperation, training programmes, joint research, and the development of chip design curricula at universities can be strengthened.
Indonesia’s Position in the Southeast Asian Semiconductor Ecosystem: Global supply chain restructuring due to geopolitical dynamics is driving many countries to seek new locations for semiconductor technology development. In the Southeast Asian region, countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam, and Singapore have already entered this industry’s value chain. Indonesia has the potential to assume a strategic role, particularly in chip design, semiconductor software development, and the integration of chip technology with the national digital industry.
“Indonesia does not need to immediately build a wafer fabrication plant worth tens of billions of dollars. Many countries start from a chip design centre and semiconductor talent development. Cooperation with Arm can be a very strategic initial step,” Azka explained.
Furthermore, Azka believes that the success of this cooperation depends heavily on commitment to ensure genuine technology transfer, rather than merely technology licensing.
Several strategic steps that can be undertaken include: establishing a national chip design centre; processor design engineer training programmes based on Arm architecture; research collaboration between global industry and Indonesian universities; and strengthening semiconductor-based technology startup ecosystems.
“If this cooperation can produce concrete knowledge transfer, Indonesia has the opportunity to become a centre for semiconductor talent development in Southeast Asia within one to two decades,” concluded Azka Aufary Ramli.
Cooperation with Arm is expected to be a starting point for building Indonesia’s semiconductor ecosystem, whilst also strengthening Indonesia’s position in the increasingly competitive global technology economy.