Telkom Indonesia Boosts Digital Infrastructure to Support AI Growth
Telkom Indonesia is accelerating the development of digital infrastructure to meet the rapidly increasing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) computing, particularly in Jakarta and Batam.
Director of Wholesale & International Service at Telkom Indonesia, Budi Satria Dharma Purba, stated that connectivity requirements to support AI computing activities have increased by more than 10 to 20 times compared with before.
Budi explained, “For compute, the connectivity is more than 10 times, 10-20 times. This is the reality that is happening.” He highlighted two main locations for data centre growth in Indonesia, namely Jakarta, which is already highly developed, and Batam.
“If we look now at how data centre development in Indonesia is progressing to support AI, there are at least two locations. One is Jakarta, where data centre development is certainly proliferating. The second is Batam,” said Budi.
This surge in demand poses a challenge because network infrastructure construction takes a long time. Budi cited the Bifrost submarine cable connecting Singapore to the United States, which took around five years to build, yet its capacity was exhausted less than a year after completion.
“That is why I said, we need five years to build a cable, but it is used up in less than a year,” he remarked.
Telkom Indonesia’s President Director, Dian Siswarini, said the company is allocating investment or capital expenditure (capex) of 18-20% of revenue to support various digital infrastructure projects.
“So the ratio of capex or investment we spend to revenue. Our capex is between 18-20%,” she said.
Dian explained that the funds are used for building mobile networks, domestic fibre networks, international fibre connectivity via submarine cables, as well as power and data centres.
“Part of it is used to build fibre networks, both domestic and international fibre going abroad. Another part is used to build power and also data centres,” she said.
Budi added that if Indonesia is to develop as a data centre hub to support AI, the construction of computing facilities must be supported by adequate global connectivity.
“If Indonesia becomes a growth centre for data centres to support AI, its global connectivity must be available,” Budi concluded.