By Dharma Simorangkir, President Director Microsoft Indonesia
Read the Bahasa Indonesia version here
As we close 2024, I reflect on Indonesia’s remarkable journey thus far – a nation that has overcome challenges in equal access to technology and resources to embrace AI innovation and stand at the threshold of a transformative era. Resilience, empathy, curiosity, and unyielding have underpinned this transformation, showcasing the best of our values. This year has indeed demonstrated the potential of AI for AI—Advancing Indonesia, not just as a tool but as a catalyst for creativity, collaboration, and progress.
Microsoft warmly welcomes the new government administration and is excited about the opportunities to collaborate in achieving Indonesia’s ambitious digital transformation goals – guided by a shared commitment to inclusivity and progress. From shaping industries to empowering individuals, AI reflects our nation’s resourcefulness, helping us reimagine what’s possible for our diverse and dynamic nation.
The New Digital Economy: A Foundation for Growth
Indonesia’s journey toward a new digital economy mirror past revolutions like the printing press or the internet – moments that reshaped society and created new opportunities for progress. Today, cloud and AI technologies are at the heart of this transformation, enabling innovation and inclusivity while empowering communities across the archipelago. These technologies are not just tools—they are enablers of a future where digital empowerment touches every corner of the nation.
Are we ready for this transformation? Indonesia says yes – 92% of knowledge workers in Indonesia already use generative AI at work, surpassing global (75%) and Asia Pacific (83%) averages, according to the Microsoft and LinkedIn Work Trend Index 2024 that we launched mid- year. This readiness is deeply rooted in Indonesia’s spirit of curiosity and experimenting new things, shaped by its youthful and diverse population. With 70% of Indonesians in the working-age group, creativity and collaboration thrive. This is exemplified by over 3.1 million developers on GitHub, the third-largest developer community in Asia-Pacific, whose contributions in the number of public generative AI projects on the platform grew by 213% in 2023 alone. Such ingenuity highlights the gotong royong spirit, where collective efforts turn challenges into opportunities.
Amplifying Ingenuity: Real Stories of Impact
These opportunities are not theoretical—they are already being realized through the ingenuity of Indonesia’s innovators, whose curiosity and resourcefulness reflect the nation’s strength. As we move into Year 2 of AI, the focus has shifted from AI adoption to AI integration across key industries, driving the new AI economy in Indonesia. Across sectors, innovators are applying AI to solve challenges and create meaningful impact, from ensuring food security to fostering financial inclusion.
Inclusivity remains a cornerstone of these efforts, ensuring that everyone benefits from transformative innovations spanning diverse industries, sectors, and communities. AI-powered innovations are helping startups, enterprises, NGOs, educational institutions, governments, and individuals alike tackle pressing challenges and unlock new opportunities in Indonesia’s digital transformation journey.
Yayasan Mitra Netra, for example, has developed an Arabic Braille Converter powered by GPT-4, enabling millions of visually impaired individuals to access information seamlessly.
In education, Universitas Terbuka has created an AI Assistant integrated into 1,000 virtual classrooms across 10 subjects, reaching 60,000 students across Indonesia’s provinces. By bridging the gap in access to quality education, this initiative ensures that students in even the most remote areas can benefit from equal learning opportunities.
For enterprises, Telkomsel is leading the way with Veronika, its virtual assistant powered by Azure OpenAI Service. By integrating AI, Telkomsel has seen a 140% increase in customer self-service interactions, with quicker and more accurate solutions driving improved engagement for digital lifestyle products.
In the financial sector, BRI is implementing four generative AI use cases, including a chatbot named Sabrina that provides transparent financial information to millions of Indonesians. This innovation underscores how AI is fostering financial inclusion by making services more accessible and efficient.
Startups like eFishery are also changing the game with AI. The first aqua technology startup based in Asia with a mission to combat world hunger has launched Mas Ahya (Mr. Cultivation Expert). The solution, powered by Azure OpenAI Service, is designed to provide advice and insights to Asian aqua farmers. It caters to farmers with varying levels of experience and uses everyday language. It also supports multiple local languages, starting with Bahasa Indonesia and Javanese.
Hackathons supported by Microsoft and its partners are another avenue where local creativity meets global potential. The AI MISS YOU team, runners-up of the AI TEACH Regional Hackathon, used generative AI to inspire critical thinking in students while preserving local heritage in Probolinggo, thereby contributing to the digital economy. Similarly, the NuSantap project, a winner of the GovAI Hackathon, leverages AI and computer vision to address child nutrition, aligning with Indonesia’s government programs for stunting prevention.
These examples collectively highlight how AI integration is addressing real-world challenges across sectors. From fostering inclusivity and improving education to transforming aquaculture and enhancing financial services, AI is helping Indonesia realize its ambitions for a thriving, inclusive digital economy.
Investing in Skills for a Resilient Workforce
A thriving digital economy depends on a skilled workforce. In almost the past three decades, Microsoft has empowered 25 million Indonesians with ICT-related skills. This year, Microsoft introduced the elevAIte Indonesia program in collaboration with the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Kemkomdigi) as well as other stakeholders.
This initiative aims to equip 1 million Indonesians with critical AI skills. It focuses on empowering diverse groups—including government, industries, education, and communities—with the tools needed to navigate an increasingly AI-driven economy.
To support this effort, the AI Skills Navigator, an AI-powered website, provides learners with a personalized platform to identify skill gaps, tailor their learning journeys, and access trusted certifications. Designed to meet the demands of the evolving AI economy, this platform ensures participants across all career stages can build practical skills that enhance productivity, creativity, and employability.
Through elevAIte Indonesia, Microsoft reaffirms its commitment to fostering digital equity, preparing a workforce to capitalize on critical infrastructure like the upcoming Indonesia Central region, ensuring that technology drives growth across all sectors. The goal is to have a generation of productive digital talents ready to take on an increasingly AI-oriented world.
Responsible AI and Security: Trust at the Core
As innovation accelerates, maintaining trust remains paramount. As such, since more than a decade ago, Microsoft has established our Trusted Cloud Principles to guide our Microsoft Cloud technology. These principles include security, privacy, compliance, reliability/resiliency, and intellectual property.
When it comes to security, Microsoft has committed over $20 billion to cybersecurity globally. Most recently, as part of our company’s Secure Future Initiative (SFI) which promises to prioritize security above all else, we have appointed 13 Deputy Chief Information Security Officers (Deputy CISOs) responsible for spearheading SFI across the company, mobilized 34,000 full-time engineers to integrate security into the fabric of their work (making it the largest cybersecurity engineering effort in history), launched Security Skilling Academy to help train all employees on cybersecurity, and implemented the security core priority as a performance measure for all employees.
Meanwhile in privacy and compliance, Microsoft Cloud is providing more than 100 compliance offerings, making it the most comprehensive set of compliance offerings of any cloud service provider. Most recently in Indonesia, aligning with the Personal Data Protection Law (UU PDP), we introduced the Premium Assessment Template for Indonesia’s PDP Law in Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager. This template can help organizations in streamlining their overall compliance efforts, including to PDP Law, by automating critical compliance tasks and simplifying the assessment process.
Aligning with all these principles is Responsible AI commitment, which fosters collaboration among organizations to ensure AI systems are fair, inclusive, and transparent. Through tools like the Responsible AI Impact Assessment Template, Microsoft empowers businesses to collaboratively identify risks, establish safeguards, and build AI systems that align with ethical principles and societal values.
A Vision for the Future: AI for Indonesia
As we look toward 2025 – which coincides with a very special milestone for Microsoft in Indonesia and globally – I am inspired by the boundless opportunities ahead, grounded in the creativity and innovation of our people. From the ingenuity of our youth to the strength of our collaborations, values like gotong-royong and curiosity continue to drive us toward achieving our goals faster and more inclusively. AI, in this context, is not just Artificial Intelligence—it is Advancing Indonesia, Amplifying Ingenuity, and Accelerating Impact.
Central to this vision is the upcoming Indonesia Central Region, a critical piece of infrastructure that reflects Microsoft’s broader commitment to the country. Now nearing general availability, this region is a testament to Indonesia’s growing role in the global digital economy. Satya Nadella’s visit to Jakarta earlier this year underscored this importance, with the announcement of an additional $1.7 billion investment to expand Microsoft’s efforts in Indonesia in terms of infrastructure and skilling.
These investments go beyond infrastructure. They symbolize a future where trusted cloud services tailored to local needs enable enhanced data sovereignty, world-class security and compliance, and faster AI-driven innovation. For Indonesia, this means opportunities to leapfrog into a leadership position in the global AI economy, ensuring that businesses, communities, and individuals thrive.
At Microsoft, we are proud to stand alongside Indonesia’s changemakers, continuing to invest in the people, infrastructure, and technologies that empower every individual to achieve more. Together, let us shape a future defined by innovation, inclusivity, and resilience.
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