The greatest investment made by Microsoft in its 29-year history in Indonesia will be $1.7 billion over the course of the next four years for new cloud and AI infrastructure, according to CEO Satya Nadella’s announcement on Tuesday.
Microsoft, which manages one of the biggest cloud computing businesses in the world, has advanced artificial intelligence significantly by integrating a chatbot with its search engine, Bing. As it seeks to establish itself as a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence technology to increase workplace productivity, its profits increased by 20% during the January–March quarter, according to its results report released on Thursday.
“This new generation of AI is reshaping how people live and work everywhere, including in Indonesia,” said Nadella, in Jakarta on the first stop of a tour of Southeast Asia.
“The investments we are announcing today — spanning digital infrastructure, skilling, and support for developers — will help Indonesia thrive in this new era,” he said.
Southeast Asia is seen by Microsoft as a developing market and a possible site for additional AI product development. It is anticipated that the region’s economic environment would be considerably impacted by the rise of AI. According to a research by the international consulting firm Kearney, artificial intelligence (AI) might boost Southeast Asia’s GDP by about $1 trillion by 2030, with Indonesia predicted to account for $366 billion of that total.
The initiative, which was made public on Tuesday, would boost Indonesia’s expanding digital developer community in addition to providing AI training for 840,000 individuals.
After China and India, Indonesia has the third-largest developer community in the Asia-Pacific area. GitHub is a Microsoft-owned site that is used by more than 3.1 million developers in Indonesia for software development, innovation, and collaboration. By 2026, it is expected to rank among the top five developer communities worldwide on GitHub.
On April 17, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, visited with Widodo and announced that the business will “look at” production in Indonesia.
Under the leadership of President Joko Widodo, Indonesia has placed a strong emphasis on the growth of the digital technology and information sectors in an effort to realize the government’s Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, which calls for the country to rank among the top five economies in the world with a GDP of up to $9 trillion, precisely one hundred years after it gained independence from Dutch colonizers.
Tuesday, Nadella and Widodo had a meeting in the Presidential Palace. According to Indonesia’s Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Budi Arie Setiadi, Widodo proposed at the meeting to build an AI research center in Indonesia and a Microsoft data center either in Bali or Nusantara, the country’s new capital city on Borneo island.