Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison chief eyes Asian AI leadership role for Indonesia

• President Director and CEO of IOH Vikram Sinha says Indonesia is primed to become a leading AI hub in Southeast Asia
• Sahabat AI will offer sovereign AI opportunities for Indonesian population
• AI is a “great equaliser” says telco leader

Indonesia could serve as a vital AI hub for the Asia region thanks to its rich sources of water, power and young workers, according to the CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison.

Speaking to journalists during a private briefing at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Vikram Sinha, President Director and CEO of IOH said the country’s position as one of the largest economies in Southeast Asia and a strong trade relationship with China also positions it as key location for helping to grow AI in the region.

Indonesia is made up of over 17,500 islands, home to around 280 million people with an average age just over 30. For IOH, AI is seen as a key transformative technology for the country.

 “Indonesia has just announced a trade deal with the US,” he added. “And we have one in place with China. Indonesia has a clear philosophy which is friend to all.

“But we are also a very blessed country in terms of commodity, energy etc. When you talk about AI factories, countries often struggle on land or energy or water. Indonesia has them all in abundance and the government are focussing on policies that help us move fast.”

He also pointed to the relative age of Indonesia’s population and how they could learn from the best of both Eastern countries and Western ones.

“How can we train Indonesians who can help us become a creative country, and serve their nation? Once they can serve Indonesia, they can serve the region.

Sinha also explained Indonesians would benefit from IOH’s investment in AI, which includes backing the Sahabat-AI ecosystem. IOH partnered with the likes of Nvidia, GoTo, and local universities to build a sovereign AI system in Indonesia. The operator has also outlined strategic plans to support AI startups and local companies to increase productivity, with a target to contribute USD 140 billion to Indonesia's GDP by 2030.

“Our approach is AI for all,” explained Sinha. “It is a great equaliser. AI has to be able to help the most deserving,

This, he added, was why Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison had picked the city of Jayapura to open its AI Experience Centre, which went live last year, developed in partnership with global organisations including Huawei and the Wadhwani Foundation, which serves as a hub for AI innovation, education, and healthcare in Eastern Indonesia.

Central to achieving this, however, according to the Indosat chief, is making Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison itself an AI-native telco.

“If I am not using AI for Indosat at scale, how can I talk about being a techco and selling to enterprises? If you look at our latest results, we have been working with Google Cloud and their Vertex AI platform and we have made this area a dedicated focus.

“It has been around 15 months now and we are starting to see the real benefit. We are able to grow ARPU much faster than other operators in the region and we have also been able to reduce our churn, using hyper personalisation.”

A key factor in those successes has been IOH’s ability to make sure products are available at the 300,000 mom and pop shops across Indonesia.

Another element he highlighted is the vital role trust is playing between IOH, its customers, and AI.

“The foundation has to be trust,” he added. “How do you build trust with your customers? It is vital in everything we do.

So, what does the next year hold for IOH? Sinha is confident that it will continue down this road to becoming an AI native telco whilst also building out new products and services that benefit its customers.

He concluded: “In the next 12 months, you will see good, real applications on the AI grid coming up, and we'll use Sahabat as our large language model.”