Indonesia's state-owned service provider Telkom Indonesia, the country’s largest telecommunication group, is widely reported to have appointed leading global investment banking, securities, and asset and wealth management firm Goldman Sachs and local investment bank Mandiri Sekuritas to help it find a strategic investor for its data centre business NeutraDC.
Goldman Sachs is said to be the global financial advisor for the project and Mandiri Sekuritas is the lead advisor.
Described as a digital ecosystem hub for unlimited access to indonesia’s digital users and digital economy, NeutraDC is a brand of PT Telkom Data Ekosistem, which is a subsidiary of Telkom Indonesia.
Its assets include 29 data centres including five global data centres and three enterprise data centres in Indonesia and a large number of edge data centres. It has one hyperscale data centre in Jakarta and is building two more.
Indeed, in June we reported that NeutraDC had begun construction of a new hyperscale data centre in Batam designed specifically to support artificial intelligence infrastructure.
This is seen as an important market for the region. Reuters points out that investors and technology companies are apparently expecting billions of dollars worth of deals and investments linked to data centres in Asia as the artificial intelligence boom fuels demand for digital infrastructure.
This certainly could be big business for Telkom Indonesia. Reuters reported in February that a sale of a minority stake in NeutraDC could value it at more than US$1 billion. It also says that owner Telkom Indonesia has a market capitalisation of more than US$17 billion.
