Nvidia CEO Pledges AI Partnership with Indonesia Amid Major AI Developments

Nvidia Corporation CEO Jensen Huang made a commitment during a conversation with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto on Thursday to work alongside local companies in developing artificial intelligence technologies in Indonesia. Huang stressed that AI would play a crucial role in both industrial progress and societal transformation. He assured that Nvidia, along with its technology partners, was dedicated to advancing AI in Indonesia for the benefit of its people, as reported by Antara.

The discussion took place while Huang was participating in a panel at the Indonesia AI Day event in Jakarta. At the same time, President Prabowo had just arrived in Peru to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Lima. During the call, Prabowo emphasized Nvidia’s importance to Indonesia’s future, highlighting the transformative potential of AI. He extended an invitation to Huang for a future face-to-face meeting, expressing that Indonesia was eager to welcome Nvidia as a partner.

Alex Yao, co-head of Asia Pacific technology, media, and telecommunications equity research at JP Morgan, pointed out that AI would be the key driver of consumer behavior and corporate activities in the coming years. He suggested that AI’s influence would lead to major shifts in areas such as transportation, with the rise of robotaxi models, and would impact everyday life for both individuals and businesses.

Nvidia has established itself as a dominant force in AI by leveraging its advanced graphics processing units (GPUs), originally created for gaming, to meet the demands of AI’s data-heavy processing requirements. This success has not only propelled Nvidia’s stock value, making it the world’s most valuable semiconductor company, but has also elevated Jensen Huang to one of the wealthiest individuals globally.

Indonesia’s AI landscape has seen increasing international attention, including a visit last year from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. During his global tour, Altman, known for launching the ChatGPT language model in 2022, met with Indonesian policymakers to discuss setting standards for AI use.

At the Indonesia AI Day event, Indonesian telecom company Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) and tech conglomerate PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia launched the first phase of an open-source large language model (LLM) tailored for Indonesian, called Sahabat-AI. One of the project’s initial applications is Hippocratic AI, a healthcare-focused LLM designed to use Sahabat-AI for Indonesian users.

IOH plans to support this initiative through its AI cloud service, which utilizes NVIDIA’s GPU technology. Earlier in May, IOH had announced a new AI cloud service for both public and private entities, following the arrival of an initial shipment of 1,000 Nvidia GPUs in July. This collaboration, backed by AI Singapore and India’s Tech Mahindra, employs Nvidia AI Enterprise software to train and refine the language model for Indonesian contexts.

In December of the previous year, AI Singapore noted that while generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta’s Llama, and Google’s Bard were accessible globally, research remained concentrated on English and Western cultures. Due to cultural differences, AI models trained predominantly on Western data may produce outputs that are less aligned with local cultural and linguistic nuances.

To address these challenges, experts have emphasized the importance of training AI systems on regional data to ensure they meet local language and cultural expectations. In addition to IOH and GoTo, the Singapore-based research center is collaborating with Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), as well as KORIKA—Collaboration for Research and Innovation in Artificial Intelligence—along with local startups such as Glair.ai and Datasaur.ai, both backed by Jakarta-based GDP Ventures.

IOH President Director Vikram Sinha stated that Sahabat-AI aligns with Indonesia’s vision of digital sovereignty and inclusivity. He explained that developing an AI model tailored to local language and culture would enable Indonesians to fully harness AI’s capabilities. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang added that the launch of Sahabat-AI marked a significant milestone for Indonesia’s AI journey, showcasing how LLMs can be customized to reflect unique cultural and linguistic needs. He noted that Indonesia’s tradition of gotong royong, or mutual cooperation, is an example of how industry, academia, and government can collaborate to help nations worldwide leverage AI for development.

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