Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison is making significant strides by becoming the first mobile operator in Southeast Asia to deploy AI-RAN (Artificial Intelligence Radio Access Network) infrastructure in collaboration with Nokia and NVIDIA. This initiative will cover the entirety of Indonesia and fuses Nokia’s 5G Cloud RAN solution with NVIDIA’s AI Aerial platform to host both AI and RAN workloads. The venture places Indosat as a pioneer not just in Asia, but globally, enabling AI and wireless connectivity convergence for enhanced performance and efficiency.
A crucial element of the initiative is the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that solidifies the company’s commitment to developing, testing, and deploying AI-RAN solutions. This relationship initially concentrates on integrating AI workflows on the NVIDIA AI Aerial and will later incorporate RAN functionalities.
Beyond technological partners, Indosat, Nokia, and NVIDIA are collaborating with Indonesian universities and research centers. They aim to nurture AI-RAN advancement, providing academic programs to encourage AI innovation within telecom applications. This educational collaboration aims to accelerate AI-enabled networking breakthroughs related to network optimization, spectral efficiency, and energy consumption.
Indosat seeks to revolutionize network capabilities and create a diverse revenue stream. Sharing infrastructure costs enables better investment returns while enabling new AI-driven services. Enhanced network performance, spectral efficiency, and lowered energy consumption are expected as the industry moves towards a 6G upgrade.
This project aligns with Indonesia’s national AI strategy and designates Indosat as a dual operator: a connectivity provider and AI enabler. With the Sovereign AI Factory, founded in Indonesia, industries like healthcare, education, and agriculture can benefit from local AI application deployment. This infrastructure intends to cater to the AI inferencing needs of over 277 million people using the NVIDIA AI Enterprise platform and serverless APIs.
The AI-RAN deployment is structured to enable Indosat to infuse AI into every application. Partners like Hippocratic.ai, Personal.ai, GoTo, and Accenture will utilize serverless APIs to optimize distributed inference engines and ensure scalability and consistency.
Vikram Sinha, CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, stated, “This collaboration marks a transformative milestone for Indonesia’s telecommunications industry. By embedding AI into our radio access network, we’re not just enhancing connectivity—we’re building a nationwide AI-powered ecosystem that will fuel innovation across industries.”
Phased deployment will kick off with a 5G AI-RAN lab in Surabaya by early 2025. There will be a small-scale commercial AI Inferencing pilot using NVIDIA’s infrastructure in late 2025, with further expansion planned for 2026.
President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, Tommi Uitto, remarked, “Nokia is proud to work on this groundbreaking initiative with our partner, Indosat to deploy transformative AI-RAN infrastructure across Indonesia.” Uitto highlighted the synergies between AI and RAN that drive future innovation, operational efficiency, and energy optimization.
Ronnie Vasishta of NVIDIA added, “AI-RAN has completely transformed the telecom industry. The combination of Indosat’s vision for a nationwide AI grid and NVIDIA’s expertise will catalyze AI adoption.”
