Indonesia’s Indosat and GoTo launch local language AI model
Sahabat-Al is designed specifically for Bahasa Indonesia and its regional languages
Published Thu, Nov 14, 2024 · 074 PM
[JAKARTA] Indonesian telco Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) and tech giant GoTo on Thursday (Nov 14) launched the first phase of Sahabat-AI, an open-source large language model ecosystem designed specifically for Bahasa Indonesia and its regional languages.
The project has gained support from AI Singapore and India’s Tech Mahindra, which deployed Nvidia’s AI Enterprise suite – including Nvidia NeMo – to train and elevate the artificial intelligence (AI) model’s language capabilities.
The launch, held during Indonesia AI Day, was also attended by Nvidia founder and chief executive Jensen Huang, who visited Jakarta as part of his tour across Asia.
Built on Nvidia’s comprehensive AI platform, Sahabat-Al is set to launch with models boasting eight billion and nine billion parameters in its initial phase.
Catherine Hindra Sutjahyo, president of on-demand services at GoTo Group, highlighted a defining feature of Sahabat-AI that distinguishes it from other large language models: its foundation in Indonesian and regional languages such as Javanese and Sundanese.
Going forward, she said, Sahabat-AI will be enhanced with additional regional languages, such as Batak and Balinese.
“This gives it a profound grasp of local context and cultural relevance,” she added.
The technology and AI industries in Indonesia have been rapidly growing and attracting increasing foreign investment in recent years, including commitments from Nvidia and Microsoft. In April, Microsoft announced a US$1.7 billion investment.
Minister of State-Owned Enterprises Erick Thohir announced that under President Prabowo Subianto’s administration, the government will expand Indonesia’s data centre infrastructure to fuel the growth of the AI industry across the region.
This ambitious initiative aligns with the country’s target of achieving 8 per cent economic growth over the next five years, positioning Indonesia as a key player in the digital economy.
During the panel session, Nvidia’s Huang said that the company is eager to support South-east Asia’s largest economy in spearheading AI development, helping it build a home-grown industry and take control of its own technological future.
“This is an incredible opportunity, but it’s also a mandate – a necessity,” he said.
“No country can afford to have its natural resources, the data of its people, extracted, transformed into intelligence, and then imported back. That doesn’t make sense. You must own your intelligence; you cannot outsource it.”
He highlighted AI’s potential to democratise technology and empower local farmers, emphasising how Indonesia’s low production costs and high Internet penetration create a promising environment for transformative advancements.
As part of its expansion strategy, Nvidia in April said it will establish a US$200 million AI centre in Indonesia, in collaboration with IOH, Google and Northstar.
Vikram Sinha, CEO and director of IOH, said that the AI centre will be located at Solo Technopark in Surakarta, Central Java, with construction set to begin next year.
The company is also exploring the possibility of creating similar facilities in Jakarta and Jayapura (in Papua) next year.
Sinha said that IOH is focused on making AI accessible to, and affordable for, all Indonesians.
He added that the company aims to double its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation next year to support its expansion and the integration of AI across various business sectors.
“No country can afford to have its natural resources, the data of its people, extracted, transformed into intelligence, and then imported back. That doesn’t make sense. You must own your intelligence; you cannot outsource it.”
Jensen Huang, Nvidia founder and CEO
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Global IT consulting firm Accenture is seizing the massive potential of AI Indonesia through its new partnership with Nvidia.
The arrangement will see Accenture create a Nvidia Business Group dedicated to helping clients use and scale generative AI tools.
Speaking at the same panel, Julie Sweet, chief executive of Accenture, said the collaboration intends to support the country’s push for AI sovereignty, ensuring that Indonesia can harness and control its own data and intelligence.
“A very important bedrock of our collaboration is that we will lead in sovereign AI, and we’ll take that across the region.”
Accenture has trained 30,000 experts on the use of Nvidia’s technology to help their customers deploy and benefit from it rapidly.
