Google opens Jakarta cloud region amid Indonesia’s booming digital economy

Google Cloud has opened its cloud region in Indonesia as it ramps up efforts to carve out a bigger slice of one of the fastest-growing public cloud markets in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

Officially launched today, the new region in the capital city, Jakarta, will comprise three cloud zones, offering a slew of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services, such as Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine and BigQuery, among others.

A dedicated interconnect service that provides direct physical connections to an on-premise network and Google’s network is also available for enterprises that are planning hybrid cloud deployments.

As a sign of the importance of the Indonesian market to Google, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivered an opening address during an online launch event that underscored the opportunities in the country despite current challenges.

“You’re one of the most creative dynamic and entrepreneurial countries in Southeast Asia,” he said. “With more than 150 million internet users, you have the fastest-growing digital economy in the region and it’s expanding by more than 40%.

“The most exciting thing about Indonesia’s booming digital economy is how you’re using it to improve lives – from a new generation of young Indonesians working on big ideas for the future to new startups, whose innovations are spreading around the world.”

Pichai said the Jakarta cloud region – Google’s ninth in APAC – will make it easier and faster for companies to use its artificial intelligence and data analytics tools, citing examples such as e-commerce unicorn Tokopedia, which is using GCP to forecast demand and manage inventory, and insurer Sequis Life, which is using Anthos and microservices to build apps that help agents serve customers.

“Whether you’re a large enterprise, or a startup in industries such as financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, retail and e-commerce, Google Cloud is here to support your digital transformation with the same technologies that power our own products, like Google search and Gmail,” he said.

The launch of a Google cloud region in Indonesia had been widely anticipated by Google’s Indonesian customers, who have been using services in neighbouring cloud regions such as Singapore and Sydney.

During a customer panel session, Yessie Yosetya, CIO and digital officer at XL Axiata, one of Indonesia’s largest telcos, said the new cloud region will enable the company to move customer data and services back home to meet compliance requirements. Indonesia, one of the major countries in ASEAN without a data protection regime, is expected to adopt one soon.

“The other considerations when you’re putting applications on the cloud are latency and throughput,” she said. “As a telco, we’re dealing with massive data and traffic – and latency is key.”

Yosetya added that the Jakarta region will help XL Axiata manage its latency requirements better. “Having the infrastructure here will give us better comfort in using the onshore cloud, rather than one that’s outside,” she said.

According to a Google-commissioned report by Boston Consulting Group, Indonesia’s public cloud market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25%, from $0.2bn in 2018 to $0.8bn in 2023.

The cloud-based infrastructure and cloud applications are the largest segments of the public cloud market today, but platform services are expected to be the fastest-growing segment, with a CAGR averaging 25%.

As a result of these high growth prospects, major cloud service providers are setting up, or have set up, cloud regions within its borders. Alibaba Cloud currently operates two datacentres in Indonesia, and Amazon Web Services plans to open a Jakarta region by the end of 2021 or early 2022.