Illustration of a data center.(Shutterstock/sdecoret)
News Desk
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta / Fri, February 26, 2021 / 04:08 pm
Multinational technology company Microsoft announced on Thursday that it would establish the company’s first data center region in Indonesia and continue to roll out its training initiatives.
The Indonesian data center region will be the company’s second data center in Southeast Asia after Singapore and will be among Microsoft’s 60 data centers globally. All partnering businesses will have access to the Azure cloud service upon the launch.
The data center region will also feature Azure Availability Zones, which are physical locations equipped with independent power, network and cooling for additional tolerance to data center failures.
“This announcement is our most significant investment in the country in the 26 years we have been established here. With a local data center region, businesses will have faster access to cloud services and the ability for data to be stored in the country,” said Microsoft global sales, marketing and operations executive vice president and president Jean-Philippe Courtois in a statement on Thursday.
Citing research from market intelligence firm International Data Corporation (IDC), the company stated that its investment in Indonesia was expected to generate US$6.3 billion in new revenue from its local partners and consumers, and that its cloud-consuming businesses were expected to contribute 60,000 jobs to the local economy, over the next four years.
The datacenter is part of Microsoft’s Berdayakan Ekonomi Digital Indonesia (Empower Indonesia’s Digital Economy) initiative, which also aims to skill an additional 3 million Indonesians, bringing the total to 24 million Indonesians skilled by the end of 2021.
This initiative is a collaboration with four universities and the Communications and Information Ministry. Microsoft aims to develop talent pipelines for high-demand skills, such as artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity and data science.
Notable companies such as state-owned oil company Pertamina and e-commerce firm Bukalapak are said to be Microsoft’s cloud clients and have committed to using Microsoft Cloud from the new region when it is available.
Previously, Amazon Web Services (AWS) also announced that it would build its cloud region in the capital city of Indonesia by the end of this year or early 2022.
AWS is a subsidiary of the United States’ Amazon that offers analytics technology, artificial intelligent, Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning services, among other services.
Meanwhile, last year Google Cloud also announced the opening of its Jakarta region, the company’s first region in Indonesia. The newly launched cloud platform marks the first Google region in the country and the ninth in the Asia Pacific. (eyc)
