Satya Nadella (Microsoft)
Microsoft is exploring the option of building data centres in Indonesia, potentially joining fellow cloud giants Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud in an increasingly competitive Southeast Asia market.
That’s according to Joko Widodo - president of Indonesia - who claimed that “simple regulation” will be created to facilitate such a move in the country.
“Microsoft wants to invest immediately in Indonesia,” said Widodo, when addressing media during DevCon - Digital Economy Summit 2020 in Jakarta. “So within a week we will decide a new, simple regulation to support the investment.”
The Microsoft event - headlined by CEO Satya Nadella - hosted more than 2500 developers, start-ups and entrepreneurs, outlining the vendor’s strategy for cloud success in Southeast Asia, driven by enhanced Azure capabilities.
Despite a lack of detail on the alleged plans - which have so far not been confirmed by Microsoft - Widodo’s comments suggest Redmond will be the third horse to enter the cloud race in an expanding Indonesian market.
Google Cloud is widely expected to become the first major hyper-scaler to launch a dedicated cloud service in Indonesia, even though Alibaba Cloud is already represented in-country.
Revealed during the Jakarta version of Google Cloud Summit in October 2018, the move will represent the vendor’s eighth cloud region in Asia Pacific, as the tech giant continues to build out capabilities across the wider region.
Meanwhile, AWS revealed plans in April 2019 to open a new infrastructure region in Indonesia by early 2022, catering to the country’s growing start-up ecosystem, large enterprises and government agencies.
Once launched, it will be the provider’s ninth region in Asia Pacific, joining Beijing, Mumbai, Ningxia, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and the recently rolled out Hong Kong SAR.
“The Indonesian data centre market has experienced significant growth over the past two decades,” a recent report from ResearchAndMarkets stated. “In particular, growth has been very strong over the past few years, as Indonesia seeks to bridge the gap with its more advanced neighbours such as Singapore and Malaysia.
“However, lack of government incentives and programs to support the growth of data centres in the country has seen the adoption of data centre services at a slower organic pace compared to some neighbouring countries.”
Despite this, and according to research findings, the market is now beginning to gain “strong momentum”.
“Indonesia is attracting investments from hyper-scale cloud providers such as Google, Alibaba and Amazon, reflecting a growing interest in Indonesia as an alternative to Singapore, for cloud and data centre services,” the report added.
“Large international data centre specialists and international content and cloud providers have yet to enter Indonesia to the same extent seen in more advanced markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong, however, their interest in the Indonesian market is now increasing.
“Compared to more mature neighbouring markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan where land for new builds is scarce and expensive to acquire, in-comparison Indonesia has better availability of land at cheaper prices. The availability of affordable land means that companies establishing a base in Indonesia could find it easier to build their own facilities.”
