Microsoft plans to invest $1.7 billion in Indonesia

As a means to position itself at the forefront of digital transformation in Southeast Asia where the influx of cloud adoption is high and expected to reach $40.32 billion by 2025, Microsoft has announced to invest $1.7 billion over the next four years to develop new cloud and AI infrastructure in Indonesia.

This is to facilitate 840000 Indonesians in AI skills and provide support to local developers.

By collaborating with governments, organizations, and communities, they will extend AI skilling opportunities to 2.5 million individuals across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states before 2025.

While the demand for cloud computing services is on the rise, the need for large data centers makes the tech giant's investment pivotal to the nation in capitalizing on significant economic and productive opportunities presented by AI's latest technology.

As such, AI will contribute almost $1 trillion to Southeast Asia’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030, of which Indonesia is well-positioned to capture $366 billion of this revenue driven by its Golden 2045 Vision to become a prosperous world power.

However, it remains to be seen if Indonesia could transition into a developed nation and a key global economic player like China and the U.S. by 2045 when data centers are still insufficient to meet the growing demand for cloud services.