The UGM Indosat Nvidia AI Technology Center (NVAITC), launched in Yogyakarta, is part of the Indonesia AI Center of Excellence (AI CoE) initiative
In sum – what to know:
AI research – UGM, Indosat, Nvidia and the Indonesian government have launched a university-based center for applied AI research and talent development.
Priority projects – Initial work covers tuberculosis screening, tropical agriculture, and disaster prediction and response.
Infrastructure push – The launch comes alongside a separate report that Indosat is seeking about $2 billion to finance advanced chips for its AI data centers.
Indonesian carrier Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Nvidia, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), and Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs have launched a university-based AI technology center focused on research, innovation, and digital talent development.
The UGM Indosat Nvidia AI Technology Center (NVAITC), launched in Yogyakarta, is part of the Indonesia AI Center of Excellence (AI CoE) initiative. The partners said it will bring together government, industry, technology companies, and academia to support applied AI research in Indonesia’s priority sectors.
The new facility will provide UGM researchers and students with access to Nvidia’s AI platform and GPU Merdeka, Indosat’s sovereign GPU-as-a-service platform. The offering includes accelerated computing, AI software, pretrained models, development frameworks, technical mentorship, training, and industry collaboration.
Indosat chief executive officer Vikram Sinha said the initiative would expand access to AI technologies and expertise for researchers, students, startups, and innovators. “At Indosat, we believe no Indonesian should be left behind in the AI era. Through UGM Indosat NVAITC, we are bringing the best of global AI technologies and expertise to Indonesia, while expanding access for the ecosystem of researchers, students, startups, and innovators across the country,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nvidia VP of solutions architecture and engineering Marc Hamilton said the center would focus on areas including healthcare, agriculture, and disaster preparedness.
The new AI center will initially support projects in three areas. eNose-TB is an AI-powered screening technology aimed at supporting Indonesia’s fight against tuberculosis. SmartAgri combines multimodal AI, edge computing, and precision farming technologies for tropical agriculture, while Tech4Disaster is a geospatial AI platform focused on disaster prediction, preparedness and response.
The launch comes as Indosat is also pursuing a broader expansion of its AI infrastructure. A recent report said Indosat was seeking about $2 billion in financing to purchase advanced chips for its AI data centers. The report also noted that Citigroup had been hired to arrange the loan and was seeking participation from other banks in a potential syndication.
In a recent interview with RCR Wireless News, Sinha said the operator views AI-RAN as the architectural foundation for a broader distributed AI platform rather than simply a way to improve network efficiency.
“Our recently announced partnership with Nokia is about enhancing our network through the advanced 5G RAN technologies to ensure it is AI-ready. AI-RAN provides the common architecture for combining network connectivity and intelligence to create an AI Grid. This grid combines our centralized AI Factories with distributed AI computing power that is much closer to end users across Indonesia,” the executive said.
Sinha also said the approach is intended to support the deployment of Indonesian-developed AI models across the country. “Why is this important? Because it is enabling AI models like Sahabat AI and AI applications to be developed and used by Indonesians wherever they are in the country,” he added.
According to Sinha, Sahabat AI is already being adopted in several sectors. “We are already seeing adoption of Sahabat AI to practical applications across government services, healthcare, education, and agriculture. We believe the upgraded network will also enable advanced consumer and enterprise use cases across key sectors, including public services, industry, and digital services.”
The carrier is also supporting AI adoption through AI experience centers in Solo and Jayapura, Papua, as well as through its AI-RAN innovation center in Surabaya and the Nvidia AI technology center.
