Indosat: AI Sovereignty Must Begin with Ecosystem Development

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indosat Director and Chief Legal & Regulatory Officer Reski Damayanti believes that efforts to build artificial intelligence (AI) sovereignty in Indonesia must start with developing its supporting ecosystem, including talent development, infrastructure, and government support. According to Reski, Indonesia cannot immediately create AI applications without the readiness of the human resources who will develop the technology. “We must create an AI ecosystem first. We cannot declare that Indonesia must create the applications if the talent is not ready, and this must go hand in hand,” Reski said during a discussion session at the Indonesia AI Ethics Summit in Jakarta on Wednesday. As an example, she highlighted Singapore’s policy of providing incentives for companies that develop AI models by employing local AI experts. According to Reski, government support is a crucial factor in accelerating the growth of the national AI ecosystem. “We cannot mandate that data for sovereign AI must reside in Indonesia if the infrastructure is not ready. Therefore, infrastructure development must be carefully considered,” she stated. Reski believes Indonesia has advantages to become a hub for AI infrastructure in the region, including the availability of land and energy sources needed to operate large-scale data centres. The construction of data centres equipped with graphics processing units (GPUs) requires significant energy capacity and extensive areas. “Indonesia has the advantage of having sufficient energy sources and opportunities to develop green energy. This must be considered to encourage Indonesia to become one of the largest infrastructure providers,” she said. She emphasised that building the AI ecosystem cannot be done in silos but must proceed simultaneously across talent development, infrastructure, and innovation. Reski added that Indonesia needs to start utilising all its potential to build adequate technological capacity so that it does not merely become a user but also a technology provider in the future. “We must start thinking about how we have strength in terms of nature, in terms of power, and we have strength in terms of people—our population is large. We must not let our large population only be told to keep shopping without us building the infrastructure,” she said.