Witnessed by Prabowo Subianto, Danantara–Arm Partnership Strengthens Indonesia's Technological Sovereignty
President Prabowo Subianto personally witnessed the signing of a framework agreement between the Daya Anagata Nusantara Investment Management Agency (BPI Danantara) and Arm Limited in London on Monday (23/2) local time, aimed at building and strengthening the national semiconductor industry.
Danantara was represented at the ceremony by its CEO, who also serves as Minister of Investment and Downstream Industries/Head of BKPM, Rosan Perkasa Roeslani.
Several ministers were also present to witness the signing alongside President Prabowo, including Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Bahlil Lahadalia, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto, and Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya.
Following the event, Coordinating Minister Airlangga explained that the partnership is a follow-up to President Prabowo’s directive for self-reliance in national technology mastery, complementing the government’s broader agenda of building national food and energy security.
“This is the leapfrog for the digital ecosystem,” said Airlangga Hartarto, as quoted from an official release by the Presidential Secretariat confirmed early on Tuesday.
Airlangga explained that Danantara chose Arm Limited as its partner because the British semiconductor company currently controls approximately 96 per cent of chip technology for the global automotive sector, as well as nearly 94 per cent of chip designs for data centres and artificial intelligence (AI).
“This is a partnership so that Indonesia can master semiconductor technology, and Arm is one of the companies that dominates the semiconductor market, particularly in terms of design. So this is the most upstream segment of the semiconductor industry itself,” said Coordinating Minister Airlangga.
Airlangga added that the Danantara–Arm Limited framework agreement is expected to serve as the basis for training 15,000 Indonesian engineers within the Arm ecosystem.
“The objective is for them to master chip design technology, and the cooperation plan will extend to the next generation of semiconductors or chips so that Indonesia has capability in the semiconductor and design fields,” Airlangga continued.
At the same occasion, Danantara CEO Rosan Perkasa Roeslani expressed hope that the partnership with Arm Limited would have wide-ranging impacts on national industrial development whilst strengthening Indonesia’s technological sovereignty.
Rosan noted that the cooperation includes, among other things, sending experts abroad as well as bringing Arm specialists directly to Indonesia with specially designed training modules.
“There will indeed be six industries selected for the development of these chips, and as the Coordinating Minister mentioned, there are plans for 15,000 of our engineers to be trained by Arm, either by sending them here or by having their instructors come to Indonesia with their training modules,” said Rosan.