Indonesia’s 2024 presidential candidates have presented their visions of how they will manage the country’s quickly growing digital economy if they are elected.

Budiman Sudjatmiko, a member of the expert advisory council for the campaign of presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, said the candidates considered control of physical equipment and infrastructure the key to digital ecosystem development.

“The problem is, we have always assumed that the digital world is limited to the realm of [software] applications, whereas the race between existing superpowers and emerging superpowers [is taking place in the] control of hardware, of devices,” Budiman said on Tuesday at the Indonesia Digital Summit.

He said Indonesia had been left behind in the hardware value chain and that the Prabowo campaign was seeking to develop 10 “innovation cities” – potential production hubs for future technologies.

The cities include the planned future capital, Nusantara.

Chips, nanotechnology, satellites and artificial intelligence are among the technologies the campaign envisions being produced in these cities.

Read also: From tall order to piece of cake: Presidential candidates vow to beef up R&D

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