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Google launches first Cloud region in Indonesia
Google Cloud announced the opening of its new Jakarta region on Wednesday, bringing services closer to its Indonesian and Southeast Asian consumers.
The company’s Indonesia country director, Megawaty Khie, said the Jakarta region would allow businesses to comply with national regulations and ease recovery options for consumers.
“We chose Jakarta as the next region because Indonesia has one of the highest gross domestic product growth [rates] in the region and is home to many of Asia’s unicorns,” she said in an online press conference, referring to large start-ups.
Indonesia’s digital economy is well on track to dominate Southeast Asia as its market value is projected to triple to US$130 billion by 2025 from $40 billion in 2019, according to the latest “e-Conomy Southeast Asia” study.
The newly launched cloud platform marks the first Google region in the country and the ninth in the Asia Pacific. In total, Google Cloud has 24 regions with 73 zones in 17 countries around the globe.
Google first announced the plan to open Google Cloud in Indonesia during its Cloud Summit in 2018. It plans to launch two cloud regions Asia Pacific, namely in Delhi and Melbourne in the coming years.
Google Cloud Platform offers cloud computing services, data analytics, machine learning and security and management tools for businesses.
Several companies in the country utilize Google Cloud services, including e-payment solution GoPay and telecommunication company XL Axiata.
“Having Google Cloud available in the region means that we can comply with regional regulations and requirements. This also means that latency and traffic can be more manageable,” said XL Axiata chief information and digital officer Yessie Yosetya.
Meanwhile, GoPay CEO Aldi Haryopratomo said the company utilized cloud computing to manage, analyze and capture data quickly for making data-driven decisions.
According to a 2019 study by Boston Consulting Group BCG commissioned by Google Cloud, companies that use public cloud services could add around $36 billion to Indonesia’s GDP between 2019 and 2023. They could also create around 350,000 jobs across different industries.
To help the country capture the potential, Google Cloud Indonesia plans to roll out 150,000 training labs in Indonesia this year to enable cloud computing training and certification for Indonesians.
“Going into digital transformation era, Indonesia will see higher demand for digital talent, so we created this program along with other initiatives,” Megawaty said, adding that Google was also partnering with the Information and Communications Ministry in the latter’s Digital Talent Scholarship program.
Indonesia is currently home to two data centers from Alibaba Cloud and Google. Meanwhile, Amazon’s cloud subsidiary Amazon Web Services revealed that it would build a data center in 2022.
Source: https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/06/24/google-launches-first-cloud-region-in-indonesia.html