The focus of Nongsa Digital Park is to become a Data Center and Talent Center

Currently, the data center market in Southeast Asia is experiencing growth with increasing interest from cloud providers, such as Google, AWS, and Alibaba to unlock cloud regions.

Service-based implementation cloud will be a key driver for the market in the next few years. Meanwhile, increased internet penetration is likely to support the use of smart devices in this region.

One of the locations being prepared as data center hubs in Indonesia is Nongsa Digital Park (NDP), a collaborative project between Citramas Group and Sinar Mas Land through a consortium company PT Citra Sinar Mas Global. NDP is built not only as data center hubs, but also digital talent pool in Indonesia.

Indonesian data center center

Nongsa Digital Park (NDP) is a technology and innovation hub located on the Nongsa Peninsula, Batam, and very close to Singapore. This location is considered strategic for local and foreign companies wishing to set up a data center in Indonesia.

Developed by Citramas Group, NDP was inaugurated by the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia and Singapore on March 20 2018. This data center was built with a total investment of $200 million (equivalent to Rp. 3 trillion) with a land area of ​​up to 10 ha and a total power capacity of 28 MW.

Batam was chosen as the placement of the data center due to the current lack of land in Singapore. Data center implementation, especially hyper-scale cloud, In the future, it will switch to other neighboring countries in Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia and India in the next 5-10 years.

Menurut date compiled by NDP, there are currently less than 20 data center providers in Indonesia. They are divided into the category of service providers with facilities of less than 5MW (Ex: IDC, Elitery, Jupiter), telecommunications operators (Ex: Telkom Sigma, Indosat).

In NDP there are several companies that have placed their data centers. Among them are Princeton Digital Group (PDG) and Gaw Capital Partners. CEO reportedly has prepared an investment of $ 150 million or Rp 2,1 trillion to strengthen bisnis data center in Indonesia.

Jakarta is dominated by data centers

The placement of NDP in Batam seeks to answer data center problems, which are currently mostly based in Jakarta and West Java. The most current location is Jakarta. Player like LOGOS and Pure Data Centres building a data center in Jakarta.

Previous, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has opened an Indonesian Region, namely the AWS Asia Pacific (Jakarta) Region. The opening of this Region is in line with AWS' plan to invest $5 billion (approximately Rp.71 trillion) in the next 15 years in Indonesia with an estimated contribution to Indonesia's GDP of $10,9 billion (approximately Rp.155 trillion).

Other players who have also built their data center in Indonesia include Tencent Cloud which is located in the CBD area of ​​Jakarta. Currently, the company says that their cloud computing service infrastructure covers 27 regions with 61 availability zones.

When viewed from the existing potential, not only Batam, but also East Java also has the potential to become one data center hubs in Indonesia. Deployment of data centers that are not centralized in one location can avoid natural disasters, power outages, and other disruptions that are risky for industries that require data intensively.

Digital talent center

NDP is currently also positioned as digital talent hub for Indonesia. Partnering with companies, such as IBM, Apple to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), InfiniteLearning providing training to scholarships to selected students.

Through Infinite Learning, training such as mobile development, web development, cybersecurity, cloud practitioner essential, digital business to digital supply chains can be followed by students and other general public at affordable prices.

Apart from Infinite Learning, NDP also has a third branch, Purwadhika Digital Technology School in Batam City as a learning center which is expected to trigger the birth of digital talent pool in the region.

To the media, NDP Member of The Board & Senior Director Marco Bardelli, revealed that he would contribute to the digital economy. And what is important is the shift mindset from traditional ways of measuring success in terms of investing.

"For us that is important digital talents, how work can be channeled with this development. I am more focused on the human side, namely building young Indonesian talents to be able to compete with other digital talents from various countries," said Marco.

Nongsa Digital Park claims to have accommodated around 1.000 digital workers from 100 multinational companies such as Glints, R/GA, and WebImp. This area is also equipped with facilities and infrastructure that support talent development according to expertise that is relevant to industry needs in the creative and digital technology fields.