Joint Effort Drives Indonesia`s First AI Research Center

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The known e-commerce platform Bukalapak in collaboration with the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) launched Indonesia`s inaugural artificial intelligence (AI) research center aimed to give birth to the country’s AI engineering in the future. 

“Indonesia very much lacks AI engineering, which drove the establishment of the first AI research center,” said Bukalapak CEO and Founder Achmad Zaky at the Ideafest 2018 event in Jakarta on Friday, October 26.

Zaky argued that the availability of Indonesian-made AI is currently limited since most of the country’s AI experts choose to chase a career in an international technology company. He maintained that the facility makes possible for local talents to develop its capacity domestically. 

Bukalapak is committed to establishing a research center in numerous Indonesian regions such as in Medan, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya as a large-scale attempt to attract software engineers from across the nation.

Furthermore, Communication and Informatics Minister Rudiantara explained that the government also provides a program to develop young talents in the digital industry by partnering with world-renowned tech companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Google.

East Ventures Managing Partner, Wilson Cuaca, said that the domestic ecosystem enables the birth of numerous ‘billions of dollars’ tech companies. With the internet-literate population, tech companies are convinced to develop its business scale in just a couple of years. Therefore, the investors categorize Indonesia as a potential market.

Indonesia is currently home to four tech companies valued above US$1 billion which consists of Go-Jek, Traveloka, Tokopedia, and Bukalapak. Minister Rudiantara predicts that the future ‘unicorn’ company will come from the finance, education, or healthcare technology industry.  

BISNIS.COM