IOH advances its sovereign strategy

• Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) has already embraced sovereign cloud and AI
• Now it has launched a sovereign security operations centre (SOC) with Cisco

Indonesian telco Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) has added to its growing list of sovereign developments with the launch of a sovereign security operations centre (sovereign SOC) in collaboration with Cisco. 

Cisco’s Splunk Cloud Platform and Splunk Enterprise Security are the key platforms underpinning the sovereign SOC, which offers enterprises “real-time, AI-powered threat detection and observability across hybrid and multicloud environments,” noted IOH in this announcement about the launch. “This trusted platform ensures that sensitive national data remains protected under Indonesian jurisdiction, enabling businesses and government agencies to detect and respond to threats faster, while ensuring compliance with data sovereignty regulations,” it added. 

“Everything that is connected must be protected,” stated IOH president and CEO Vikram Sinha. “Together with Cisco, we are not just launching a security platform – we are enabling a strategic safeguard for the nation. This sovereign SOC is about protecting our infrastructure, empowering our people, and securing the digital economy at scale. It reinforces our belief that digital transformation must be trusted, inclusive and sustainable.”

According to Cisco, 91% of organisations in Indonesia experienced an AI-related cybersecurity incident in the past year, so the launch of the sovereign SOC is timely. 

The move follows the launch in July of Indonesia’s AI Center of Excellence, a “national initiative aimed at accelerating the country’s AI competitiveness” through a strategic collaboration between IOH, Cisco and Nvidia, with IOH noting at the time that the launch “represents a shared commitment to advancing AI sovereignty, building national capabilities and enabling AI access for all Indonesians – rural and urban, corporate and startup, government and citizens.”

IOH first engaged with Nvidia to further its own AI ambitions in March 2024, and that engagement has led to the development of one of the AI Center of Excellence’s key strategic approaches – the provision of sovereign infrastructure. “Indosat and Nvidia are leading the charge to expand Indonesia’s first sovereign AI infrastructure built for scale, performance and national self-reliance. This platform will deliver a world-class foundation for secure, high-performance AI workloads, uniquely designed to empower Indonesia’s digital ambitions and accelerate homegrown innovation,” noted IOH. 

In August 2024, IOH joined forces with Google Cloud to deliver sovereign cloud and edge solutions that meet the country’s “most stringent data residency, security and privacy requirements”. The partners announced plans to offer Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) for organisations that want to run AI and data-intensive workloads at their location of choice. This will allow Indonesian organisations in the public sector and other critical industries, such as defence, healthcare, financial services, energy and manufacturing, to accelerate digital transformation with “best-in-class AI and analytics capabilities, while ensuring they have complete control and protection of their sensitive data,” the telco explained.

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV