VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Communication and Informatics Minister Johnny G. Plate has said that he expects to launch Indonesia's first cloud-based digital national data center (PDN) in 2024 to support the upstream and downstream communication and information technology infrastructure.

"The first data center will be built near Jakarta. We will conduct the ground-breaking in the near future," he said during the Leaders' Talk session of the 2022 Indonesia Digital Financial Economics Festival (FEKDI) here on Monday.

The first cloud-based PDN will be constructed in Deltamas Industrial Estate, Central Cikarang sub-district, Bekasi district, West Java province.

FEKDI is a side-event of the 3rd 2022 G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) Meeting and the 3rd 2022 G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies (FCBD) Meeting, taking place from July 11–17, 2022, in Nusa Dua, Badung district, Bali province.

The government is also planning to establish a cloud-based PDN in Nongsa sub-district, Batam city, Riau Islands province, at the same time, the minister said.

Both PDNs will have almost the same capacity so that they can support each other’s performance, he added.

Furthermore, he said that a number of cloud-based PDNs should also be constructed in the central and eastern regions of Indonesia to improve the efficiency of the communication and information infrastructure.

"Initially, we planned to build them in Balikpapan (in East Kalimantan province). However, considering the development of the IKN (Indonesia’s future capital, Nusantara, which will be located in East Kalimantan province), the PDNs will be built in the IKN and Labuan Bajo (in East Nusa Tenggara province)," he informed.

Plate said that the two locations have been chosen since they have access to a large amount of power supply provided by more than one electricity source.

“In addition, there are adequate fiber-optic networks," he added.

Labuan Bajo has particularly been selected because it has a fiber-optic network connecting the western, southeastern, and eastern regions of Indonesia, he said.

The area is also located in the southern region of the country, which has a smaller risk of volcanic disturbance than the northern region, he added.

The fiber-optic network in the northern region stretches along the northern part of Kalimantan Island, Manado city in the northern part of Sulawesi Island, North Maluku province, as well as Biak Island and Jayapura city in the northern part of Papua Island, he informed.

"Volcanic activity (along the region) is very high, thus (fiber-optic) sea cables are repeatedly damaged due to the eruption of underwater volcanoes; hence, we need to prepare alternative (infrastructure)," the minister said.

The government is striving to expedite the construction of cloud-based PDNs to support the digitization of government services through e-government and make data-driven public policies in the future, he added.

“Currently, the government utilizes 2,700 data centers and servers for the (implementation of) e-government. However, only 3 percent (of them) are cloud-based," he said. (Antaranews)