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tate-run telecommunications giant PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) and publicly listed information & technology (IT) firm PT Multipolar Technology are expanding their data center business amid promising market potential in a country where data consumption is expected to boom.

Telkom'€™s data center business arm PT Sigma Cipta Caraka (Telkomsigma) aims to have a total of 100,000 square meters for its data center capacity in the country by the years'€™ end from around 55,000 square meters at present.

'€œWe'€™ll become aggressive and stay committed to our goal of achieving 100,000 square meters [of capacity],'€ said Telkom'€™s enterprise and business service director Muhammad Awaluddin, who is also the president commissioner of Telkomsigma.

Telkomsigma would expand its data center through both expansion and transformation of non-data center buildings, he said recently.

The firm currently operates three data centers in Serpong, Tangerang and Surabaya with a total space of roughly 12,300 square meters.

Telkomsigma also plans to build a new data center in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan in anticipation to hosting Indonesia'€™s skyrocketing digital universe that is forecast to grow by more than six times between 2014 to 2020.

Awaluddin said that Telkomsigma'€™s data centers were particularly aimed at serving customers from the banking sector.

Research firm Frost & Sullivan has estimated that the country'€™s IT spending would hit US$3.8 billion in 2019, with around 27 percent coming from banking, financial services and the insurance industry.

The research firm has also predicted that cloud and data center services would be growth engines for IT spending with a growth rate of 605 percent and 317 percent, respectively, from 2013 to 2019.

The banking and financial sectors are among the most over-regulated industries where consumer data protection and domestic data hosting becomes a critical point.

To become a strong player in the market, Awaluddin said, Telkomsigma would start focusing on IT outsourcing to provide end-to-end solutions for clients.

The company would offer various solutions from machine-to-machine services to connectivity and data center services, he said.

Also jumping onto the data center bandwagon, Multipolar Technology '€” through its subsidiary PT Graha Teknologi Nusantara (GTN) '€” recently held a ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of its first data center in Cikarang, West Java.

The 2,000 square meter, tier-4 data center, dubbed GTN data center, is estimated to cost roughly $200 million and is expected to start operating in April of next year.

GTN, which is a joint venture between Multipolar Technology, Japanese investment firm Mitsui and Mitsui'€™s subsidiary Mitsui Knowledge Industry, will invest approximately $25 to 30 million during the first phase of the data center development.