Nvidia eyes Indonesia for $200M AI center amid global AI scramble

The world’s leading AI semiconductor chipmaker, Nvidia, has teamed up with the Indonesia government and telecom provider Indosat to create a multimillion-dollar AI center in the country.

Nvidia, one of the world’s leading semiconductor producers for artificial intelligence (AI), announced a plan alongside the Indonesian government and telecom provider PT Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison to build a new AI center in the country. 

On April 4, Budi Arie Setiadi, the country’s communication minister, said the center will be worth $200 million and be located in Surakarta city in the Central Java region.

Setiadi said the AI center will host either telecommunication infrastructure or a human resource center.

Construction is expected to begin this year. According to the mayor of Surakarta, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the city was chosen because of its readiness with human resources and 5G infrastructure.

Nvidia signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indonesian government in January 2022, through which it pledged to train lecturers and over 20,000 university students in AI skills over five years in an effort to boost the nation’s AI talent pool.

This was prior to the AI frenzy that ensued after OpenAI released its groundbreaking ChatGPT chatbot in November 2022.

Since the time of this memorandum, the AI market has nearly doubled, with a value of $134.89 billion in 2022 to $241.80 in 2023, according to recent data.

Cointelegraph reached out to Nvidia for additional information on the development in Indonesia.

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Nvidia’s push in Indonesia follows a trend of trying to broaden its influence in the Southeast Asia region after it made record-breaking revenues related to the increasing demand for generative AI tools. 

In Singapore, local telecom company Singtel also partnered with the chipmaker for a new data center and Nvidia and the Singapore Institute of Technology have collaborated on a new AI center.

Major AI developers such as Google and Microsoft have also been pouring billions of dollars into AI initiatives across the globe, creating data centers and training programs for local communities in places like Germany, France and Spain.

This frenzy for companies and countries to get their hands on capable AI models even extends into the crypto space after Tether Operations Limited, the blockchain and cryptocurrency firm behind the Tether stablecoin (USDT), announced an expansion of its AI focus and recruitment efforts for “top-tier” AI talent.