AI Data Center Needs Additional 20 GW of Electricity, Clean Energy is Key to Investment

Batam, Karimun and Bintan become development areas

The government is encouraging Batam, Karimun and Bintan to become new Indonesian data center nodes in a regional ecosystem that also includes Malaysia and Singapore.

Bahlil assesses that these three areas have a number of advantages, starting from the availability of water, relatively lower population density compared to West Java, Jakarta or Bali, to the opportunity to use new renewable energy (EBT).

"We will now build a PLTS of approximately 100 gigawatt-peak. And I have confidence that investor friends will prefer to use their data centers using new, renewable energy. And this is a business opportunity," said Bahlil.

The development of solar power plants (PLTS) includes large-scale plants, floating PLTS, rooftop PLTS, as well as their use in industrial areas.

In Batam, data center capacity that is available, committed and still in the development stage is said to reach a total of 1.47 GW. This figure covers various stages of development, so not all of it represents operational capacity.

PLN Batam and DayOne have also signed a 450 MW electricity supply contract. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources calls it the largest electricity supply contract for data centers in Indonesia.