TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Deputy Minister of Communication and Digital (Komdigi) Nezar Patria assessed that the use of artificial intelligence or AI could drive the digital economy and significantly contribute to Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

"Artificial intelligence is predicted to contribute to Indonesia's GDP by US$366 billion in 2030," said Patria during a speech at the Tech and Telco event in Jakarta, on Friday, February 20, 2025.

Patria explained that this projected growth in Indonesia's digital economy will stem from three key industries: marketing, gaming, and education. He said these three sectors will increasingly rely on AI to enhance worker productivity in the future. He also highlighted that AI is currently being massively utilized by the Indonesian workforce, with a percentage of 92 percent.

In addition, corporations are actively seeking to leverage AI to drive economic growth. "Data shows that 69 percent of corporate leaders also stated that they will only employ someone with AI skills," Patria quoted the results of a Google survey on AI utilization in Indonesia in 2024. With these considerations, Patria believes that workers who fail to develop AI skills will face significant challenges in the competitive job market.

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, also projected that AI could contribute up to US$360 billion, or approximately Rp5.879 trillion, to Indonesia's GDP by 2030. This optimistic outlook is based on the current growth of Indonesia's digital economic commodity value, which reached US$90 billion, or 6 percent of the GDP, in 2024.

"Most of the contribution comes from sectors driven by artificial intelligence," said Airlangga at the AI Forward event held by Alibaba Cloud at the Raffles Hotel, South Jakarta on Tuesday, January 21, 2025.

To support this digital economic growth, Airlangga said the Indonesian government targeted to produce 500,000 digital talents annually until 2030. "This means that we need about 9 million digital skills, including AI. I appreciate that so far Alibaba also supports this training," he said.

Globally, the development of AI is expected to contribute US$15.7 trillion to the world economy by 2030, with US$ 6.6 trillion attributed to productivity gains and US$ 9.1 trillion to consumption. Consumption is one of the major drivers of the Indonesian economy. This significant potential demonstrates the critical role of AI as a catalyst for innovation.

Defara Dhanya contributed to the writing of this article.

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