Indonesia Opens First University AI Center With NVIDIA and Indosat

Indonesia opened its first university-based AI technology center in Yogyakarta. The UGM Indosat NVIDIA AI Technology Center (NVAITC) is a collaboration between the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi), Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (Indosat or IOH), NVIDIA, and Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM). It operates under Indonesia's AI Center of Excellence initiative, which brings government, industry, and academia together to develop AI for national priorities.

The center runs on NVIDIA's full-stack AI platform and GPU Merdeka, Indosat's sovereign GPU-as-a-service platform. Researchers and students at UGM get access to enterprise-grade accelerated computing, AI software, open source tools, pretrained models, development frameworks, and technical mentorship. The setup also connects Indonesian researchers to a global ecosystem of expertise.

Three Initial Projects

The center starts with three projects focused on healthcare, agriculture, and natural disaster response.

The first project, eNose-TB, addresses tuberculosis detection. Indonesia records over 1 million new TB cases every year, and the disease is curable but often kills when it goes undetected. Rural and underserved areas lack the equipment and expertise needed for screening. UGM's Faculty of Medicine Public Health and Nursing team, led by dr. Dian Kesumapramudya Nurputra, is developing an AI-powered electronic screening technology that analyzes breath samples. The goal is affordable, fast, accessible screening for remote clinics and villages, without requiring specialists or expensive labs.

The second project, SmartAgri, targets agriculture, which employs nearly 30% of Indonesia's workforce. It uses multimodal AI, combining satellite imagery, sensor data, and local agricultural knowledge, alongside edge computing to deliver precision farming recommendations for Indonesian terrain, crops, and smallholders. Farmers get guidance on when and how to irrigate.

The third project, Tech4Disaster, builds a geospatial AI platform using NVIDIA accelerated computing to process satellite and sensor data quickly. Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and faces high natural disaster risk. The platform aims to give communities and emergency responders earlier warning, better situational awareness, and faster coordination tools.

Sovereign Compute and Local Talent

The center is part of Indonesia's broader push for AI sovereignty. Meutya Hafid, Indonesia's Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs, said the AI Center of Excellence reflects a long-term vision to position Indonesia as a nation that not only adopts AI but also develops and contributes AI innovations globally. She described the initiative as laying foundations for Indonesia's AI sovereignty and ensuring AI drives economic growth and national competitiveness.

Vikram Sinha, president director and CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, said the company believes no Indonesian should be left behind in the AI era. Through the center, Indosat aims to bring global AI technologies and expertise to Indonesia while expanding access for researchers, students, startups, and innovators across the country.

Marc Hamilton, vice president of solutions architecture and engineering at NVIDIA, said Indonesia has an extraordinary community of researchers and developers with potential to shape the future of AI. He noted that NVIDIA is equipping Indonesian talent with Nemotron open models and expertise to turn that potential into innovation with local and global impact.

Prof. dr. Ova Emilia, Ph.D., rector of UGM, said the university is committed to supporting Indonesia's AI ambitions through education, research, and innovation that deliver real societal impact. The initiative supports national priorities in higher education, research downstreaming, and talent development by accelerating AI adoption and preparing future-ready Indonesian talent.