Indonesia a Critical Stop for EdgeConneX Expansion in Asia
The pandemic has changed the way we live leading to greater adoption of online activity from shopping to the way people conduct business. In Indonesia, this can be seen in the fact that the number of internet users in the country jumped from 175 million to 220 million in the last two years. Such growth reflects a strong momentum in the country’s digitalisation efforts, and providing high quality and reliable digital infrastructure is essential to support the country’s digital transformation drive.
At EdgeConneX, our recent announcement of the acquisition of the GTN Data Center in Indonesia aims to meet the needs of this rapidly growing market, with Structure Research predicting that Indonesia’s data center market would reach nearly $650 milliion by 2026. Indonesia has favourable demographics, a rapidly rising homegrown technology sector, and is early in the adoption curve when it comes to outsourced infrastructure services like cloud and data centers.
Aside from its burgeoning number of internet users, Indonesia also has a significant smartphone penetration, and a study by GlobalWebIndex last year showed that 79 per cent of the population between the ages of 16 and 64 years has made at least one online purchase via a mobile device. With its considerable proportion of tech-savvy youth, the country has developed into one of the biggest online markets in the world with rising adoption of digital services such as e-commerce, ride-hailing and digital financial services.
Rising to the competition
Cloud providers continue to invest heavily in data centers to meet the ever-increasing demand for their services. And Indonesia has been one of the beneficiaries of this growth, and competition in the country’s data center market continues to heat up. Driven mainly by hyperscale cloud platforms, some analysts expect Indonesia’s data center market to double over the next two years reaching 250+ MW of operational power capacity.
Unlike most markets in the world, Indonesia is home to all the major US and Chinese hyperscale clouds. And in a country that has delivered unicorns such as Gojek and Tokopedia, there is a robust tech ecosystem that is attracting global cloud players as they establish their presence and cater to their key local customers.
These underlying factors make us excited to capture the growing opportunities in Indonesia, and we are well-positioned to work with hyperscalers to deliver the capacity and power they need, while delivering sustainable solutions through energy-efficient data center design which my colleague Kelvin Fong recently discussed.
Strategic location
The GTN data center acquired by ECX is strategically located in Bekasi Cikarang, which forms part of greater Jakarta. Bekasi, is attractive to hyperscalers and the area is now emerging as home to the country’s first cloud data center cluster. There is plenty of undeveloped land in Bekasi, the area has a reliable power supply and it is also not affected by the frequent flooding that occurs in Jakarta.
GTN’s carrier neutral facility in Bekasi supports over 50 customers in a nearly 7MW facility located in a secure area with reliable, scalable, and diverse power sources and a 100% SLA record. At the same time, EdgeConneX has acquired a plot of land directly adjacent to GTN, allowing for a future hyperscale data center campus that could ultimately support more than 90 MWs of capacity. We also foresee demand for Edge Data Centers in the market, which my colleague Chi Yee Ling recently explained as being able to deliver on the kind of user experience that today’s end customers seek.
As one of Asia’s largest populations moves increasingly online, we are committed to deliver cutting-edge infrastructure and best-in-class talent as we see our role as a bridge in Indonesia’s transition towards a more a digitalized economy.
The journey in Asia continues
The acquisition of the GTN Data Center in Indonesia marks the third country in Asia that is either established or under development as we continue to rapidly build out our data center platform in the region.
Having earlier announced plans to build a pan-Indian data center platform through our joint venture, AdaniConneX, as well as announcing a strategic investment in Chayora, a leading data center operator in China, entry into Indonesia now gives EdgeConneX presence in three of the largest countries in the world outside the United States.
With the region recognized as one of the technological hotspots of the world, our journey certainly does not stop here. Now is indeed the time to be at the forefront of edge and hyperscale data center development in Asia.
