Indonesia is investing heavily in its digital infrastructure, with mobile operators planning to spend USD16 billion between 2024 and 2030, building on USD29 billion already invested since 2015, as the nation aims to become a regional leader in digital technology.
Indonesia’s Digital Leap: Investment and Challenges
A recent GSMA report, Digital Nations 2025, positions Indonesia in the middle of 21 Asia-Pacific nations benchmarked, highlighting strengths in digital skills and cybersecurity, but also identifying gaps in innovation investment and rural coverage. Indonesian firms anticipate allocating 10% of their budgets to digital initiatives, slightly below the ASEAN average of 10.4% but above the global average of 9.8%. Two-thirds prioritize AI within their top three spending areas, while over half consider 5G-enabled IoT essential for growth.
GSMA Intelligence estimates that the next phase of 5G deployment could generate USD41 billion in GDP for Indonesia between 2024 and 2030. However, progress is threatened by delays in mid-band spectrum allocation, inconsistent rural coverage—with over 100 million people in the APAC region lacking mobile broadband access—and limited AI-ready data center capacity.
Julian Gorman, head of Asia Pacific at the GSMA, stated that Indonesia’s “scale, entrepreneurial energy and young, connected population give the country a strong opportunity to lead.” He emphasized the need for investment in “affordable, predictable spectrum; resilient backhaul; and AI-ready, sustainable data centres paired with visible consumer protections.”
Addressing the Fraud Challenge
Consumer trust is a critical component of infrastructure development. An ASEAN Consumer Scam 2025 report reveals that 45% of Indonesian adults have been victims of scams, with 68% of victims experiencing financial loss. Unlike other markets, scam attempts in Indonesia primarily originate through mobile channels, specifically OTT messaging (50%) and voice calls (44%), exceeding ASEAN averages, with social platforms accounting for 36% of contacts.
To combat fraud, Indonesia’s three major mobile operators—Telkomsel, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, and XLSmart—have formed an alliance to deploy GSMA Open Gateway APIs, including SIM Swap, Device Location Verification, Number Verification, Device Swap, OTP Validation, and KYC Match, aiming to secure payments and logins without extensive data sharing.
A significant 81% of Indonesians support operators sharing minimal network signals during high-risk transactions to prevent fraud. Comfort levels with data sharing increase from 75% to 81% when limited to suspicious activity, demonstrating a willingness to accept exception-based authentication.
Infrastructure Development and Sustainability
CBRE projects a 15-25 GW regional data center capacity gap by 2028. Indonesia is responding with sustainability-linked finance models, such as the USD403.8 million sustainability-linked loan secured by EdgeConneX, tying loan margins to power usage effectiveness, renewable energy use, and safety KPIs.
The GSMA recommends publishing measurable rural coverage targets, utilizing time-bound subsidies to mitigate infrastructure risks, confirming multi-band spectrum timelines, expanding live anti-fraud APIs to banks and wallets, and harmonizing cross-border data flows to reduce compliance costs. Indonesia is currently focused on building 5G networks and testing the next generation of digital payment infrastructure, fraud prevention APIs, and sustainable data center financing on a large scale.
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