TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Google Cloud to open first data center in RI in coming months
Tech giant Google is looking to open its first data center in Indonesia this year to enable the company to take the advantage of the growing demand for cloud computing services in the country, one of company’s senior executives has said
Change Size
T
span>Tech giant Google is looking to open its first data center in Indonesia this year to enable the company to take the advantage of the growing demand for cloud computing services in the country, one of company’s senior executives has said.
Google Cloud Indonesia country director Megawaty Khie said in Jakarta on Wednesday that, with the establishment of the data center, the company would be able to provide a reliable cloud infrastructure for its local customers.
“This year, in the next couple of months, we will launch a regional Google Cloud in Jakarta,” Megawaty said during a press briefing.
She said that Google first announced the plan to open Google Cloud in Indonesia two years ago at its Cloud Summit in Jakarta in 2018. The tech giant made another announcement in April 2019 during the Google Cloud NEXT conference in San Francisco, the United States, saying it was going to launch its cloud services in Indonesia in the first half of 2020.
“As of now, in terms of preparation, we already have the infrastructure and the people. We are simply waiting to 'open our shop',” she told reporters on Wednesday.
Several companies in Indonesia utilize Google Cloud services for their businesses, including major players in the retail industry such as homegrown e-marketplace Blibli.com and convenience store chain Alfamart, which recently expanded its services online through its Alfacart online marketplace.
In addition to providing data analytics, machine learning and security and management tools, cloud computing services allow businesses to conduct demand forecasting.
Demand forecasting uses the tools of data analytics to predict customers’ demands in order to optimize business operation and management.
Both Blibli and Alfamart said that they would forecast consumers’ demands with the help of cloud services. “The whole growth is based on forecasting,” Blibli research and development vice president Andi Rustandi Djunaedi said at the same event.
“For example, now Blibli has around 20 warehouses. We decided from [available data] which cities we are going to place them in, how big the warehouses in each city are, the types of goods stored in the warehouses and when the products will be available,” Andi explained.
He said utilizing the cloud service allowed the company to focus on “high-level” business solutions, instead of focusing on the business’ back end.
“Back then, we treated all customers the same, using a copy-and-paste standard. With today’s technology, we can personalize [shopping recommendations],” Alfamart international business and technology director Bambang Setyawan Djojo said on Wednesday, speaking about how Alfamart was adapting to the changing retail market.
Bambang explained that, with the help of machine learning on the cloud service, the company could offer customized recommendations based on each customer’s set of habits.
Aside from benefiting individual companies, the public cloud has significant potential to make a difference in the Indonesian economy, according to a study conducted by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 2019, commissioned by the Google Cloud.
Companies that use the public cloud could add around US$36 billion to Indonesia’s GDP between 2019 and 2023. They could also create around 350,000 jobs across different industries.
Google is not the only player looking to capitalize on Indonesia’s cloud industry.
Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, is planning to build regional infrastructure in Jakarta by the end of next year or in early 2022.
Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of China’s Alibaba Group, already has a head start. It opened a data center in Indonesia in 2018, becoming the first global cloud platform available in the country.
Indonesian state-owned telecommunications firm Telkom Indonesia announced it would further invest in building its cloud computing platform, including data centers, to tap into the strong potential to benefit from the digital transformation.
Telkom Indonesia president director Ririek Adriansyah estimated that the Indonesian cloud computing market could be worth $120 billion to $150 billion by 2024, around 10 percent of Indonesia's GDP. (ydp)
