Indonesia shifting to more collaborative data centre strategy

As a part of its evolving digital infrastructure strategy, Indonesia has been moving to a more collaborative data centre ecosystem from its current centralised National Data Centre (PDN) model. 

The Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs’ (Komdigi) Director-General of Digital Government Technology, Mira Tayyiba, said that in order to strengthen data resilience and sovereignty PDN needed to evolve into a collaborative platform linking government and private industry.  

“Within this ecosystem, the government will not develop and manage a single data centre, but involve third parties. This collaborative approach makes our data capacity and resilience far stronger,” she said. 

Tayyiba made these comments while delivering her keynote at the recent Digital Transformation Indonesia Conference & Expo (DTI-CX) 2025 event in Jakarta held between August 6-7.  

She explained that this strategic shift aligns with the National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) 2025-2029, which required the government to not only provide secure and accessible public services, but also build a digital ecosystem that enables cross-agency collaboration and shared data use. 

With this new collaborative ecosystem model, the national data centre management may also involve cloud providers and private data centre operators that meet security and data sovereignty standards, in accordance with ministerial regulation, she added.  

“The regulations were clear. Data must remain in Indonesia, managed under the highest security classification, auditable, and ensuring our digital sovereignty.”  

The Ministry of Komdigi has been building its first national data centre (PDN) in Cikarang, West Java, which was scheduled to be fully operational this year. It is currently undergoing security testing by the National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN).  

Currently the government agencies were still using PDN Sementara (Temporary PDN). 

GovInsider previously reported the PDN was intended to integrate the numerous fragmented data centres and government services across agencies.  

By 2023 there were 2,700 data centres managed by 629 central and local government agencies, along with more than 24,000 public service applications. 

To subscribe to the GovInsider bulletin, click here. 

Komdigi’s evaluation 

According to Tayyiba, the shift in national data centre strategy was caused by the centralised PDN's inability to respond to Indonesia's increasingly dynamic digital transformation.  

This was also driven by the government's evaluation of PDN implementation, which identified four main challenges.

The first was budget constraints. While data centre technology has been advancing rapidly, building such facilities was costly. The government had to allocate resources wisely so as not to clash with other national development priorities, Tayyiba said. 

The second challenge was differing levels of understanding among agencies. There were more than 600 central and local government agencies with varying levels of preparedness in data management. Some still saw the PDN merely as a storage facility and were yet to leverage it to enhance public services.  

“Meanwhile, some ministries such as the Ministry of Health have already taken significant steps by adopting artificial intelligence (AI) in their public services,” she continued. 

The third challenge concerned data resilience.  

Security incidents affected the PDN Temporary system and this has underscored the need for rapid recovery.  

As a result, the government began promoting a cloud-based approach rather than relying solely on dedicated physical infrastructure, with the expectation that the cloud would prove to be more flexible and resilient. 

The fourth challenge was data classification. Not all data needs to be maintained under the highest security standards. At present, data was divided into three categories: open, restricted, and confidential.  

Open data could be stored in the PDN, while the other two categories may be managed by cloud providers in line with security standards. 

The evaluation led to one key conclusion: data storage could no longer rely solely on a single, technology-intensive and expensive facility. A more adaptive approach is needed, she said. 

She added that the government has invited the private sector in the data centre industry to collaborate. Their role would be not just as technology providers, but as strategic partners in building a national data architecture that supports public service innovation. 

Tayyiba also emphasised that Komdigi welcomed input from industry players to ensure a smooth digital government transformation.  

“We highly value contributions that can help modernise the provision of digital government services, so that the benefits can be felt directly by the public,” she added.  

PDN ecosystem as the foundation of public services  

Tayyiba highlighted that the PDN ecosystem would be a game-changer in delivering more citizen-centric public services.   

She noted that public services in Indonesia have long been government-centric, designed in silos and focused on the internal needs of bureaucracy. As a result, their performance has been fragmented and has not fully benefited citizens.

Many people still had to repeatedly provide personal data whenever they accessed different services. This not only wasted time but also widened the gap of public distrust in service quality. 

“Now we are shifting that paradigm to become citizen-centric, where public services are focussed on the needs of the people. Citizens will only need to provide their data once, and it is then the responsibility of us [government agencies] to connect and share it,” she said.