Telkom to Invest Around Rp1 Trillion in Cloud Data Centers Next Year

Telkom to invest around Rp1 trillion in cloud data centers next year. Publicly listed state telecommunication giant PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) plans to invest in additional data centers in the country as a facilitator for clients with big data needs. Construction will only commence next year but Telkom is already acquiring plots of land.

Telkom chief financial officer Harry Mozarta Zen said land purchases were being carried out gradually across Indonesia. According to him, it is still difficult to accurately estimate the investment value of Telkom’s data centers since clients that are interested in becoming one of the data centers’ tenants are still growing.

“A data center will only be constructed if there is enough demand from our clients. If we had planned to construct a specific amount of centers and turns out the demand is higher than expected, it is possible for us to build more centers to accommodate as many clients as possible,” Harry told The Jakarta Post at the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry building in Jakarta on Thursday.

When asked for a rough estimate, Harry claimed that the investment value of the new data centers by the start of construction next year would be approximately Rp1 trillion (US$ 70.6 million).  

Telkom already runs data centers called NeuCentrlX spread across 17 locations. Out of all the branches, 11 are located in Indonesia, three in Singapore and one in Hong Kong.

The existing data centers are operated by Telkom subsidiary PT Sigma Cipta Caraka or Telkomsigma. The company has more than 283 clients, mostly from the banking and financial service sectors. According to Harry, the new data centers will also be operated by Telkomsigma.

“NeuCentralX centers collect, analyzes and simplifies patterns for its users. We also act as a secure network provider for transferring big data online,” said Telkom wholesale and international services director Edwin Aristiawan during the Indonesia Cloud & Data Center Convention in South Jakarta last month.

Telkom’s decision to construct more data centers came not too long after search engine giant Google announced that it was planning to open a Google Cloud Region data center in Indonesia next year. Google’s centers will configure big data using its cloud system and will serve clients throughout Southeast Asia.

Data centers enable its users to read patterns such as consumer preference or habits using big data technology and are increasingly being used by enterprises in Indonesia to optimize operations. Telkom to invest around Rp1 trillion in cloud data centers next year (bry, The Jakarta Post)