- Indosat enters the neocloud race with Zankore, a 1 GW AI infrastructure platform backed by Ooredoo, Nvidia and Nokia
- Indonesia’s AI data center market heats up as CoreWeave, Digital Edge and BDx build big amid surging APAC demand
- Power constraints could shape APAC’s AI boom, as operators chase sovereign AI workloads and gigawatt-scale capacity
Indonesian operator Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) is joining the neocloud rush, looking to deploy up to 1 gigawatt of AI factory capacity via the launch of compute platform Zankore.
The effort is backed by an $800 million investment from Qatar-based IOH parent company Ooredoo Group and partnerships with Nokia and Nvidia. The former will provide AI networking while the latter will serve up its GPU hardware and AI software.
Zankore is targeting an initial deployment of 200 megawatts of AI capacity in the first half of 2027.
“Through Zankore by Indosat, we are bringing together the complementary strengths of Ooredoo Group, Indosat, NVIDIA and Nokia to build a platform for long-term growth while supporting Southeast Asia's AI ambitions,” Ooredoo Group CEO Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo said in a statement.
Ooredoo Group already operates more than 26 data center facilities across multiple markets in the Middle East via its AI infrastructure business Syntys.
Fakhroo said “With Zankore, we are taking the next logical step by adding AI compute to that portfolio, extending our approach into the high-growth Southeast Asian market – one of today's most dynamic AI infrastructure opportunities.”
APAC AI momentum
The launch mirrors moves from other Asian operators looking to cash in on the AI infrastructure boom. All three major operators in Korea are building data center infrastructure to serve sovereign workloads in the country, with SK Telecom seeing good initial traction with its offering. Japanese operator SoftBank, meanwhile, has launched separate neocloud plays to serve customers in both Japan and the U.S. markets.
Operators are pouncing on a growing wave of data center momentum in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. The pipeline for data center development in APAC has grown to more than 26 gigawatts as of the first half of 2026, according to real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, with Australia, India, Japan and Malaysia set to become 2 GW markets by 2028.
It listed Johor in Malaysia, Tokyo, Beijing, Sydney and Mumbai as “powerhouse” markets in the region, with Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Jakarta, Shanghai, Seoul, Hong Kong and Singapore as established hubs.
Beyond Indosat’s new play, Indonesia has attracted the attention of neocloud titan CoreWeave, which earlier this week announced plans to deploy three new facilities offering a total of 360 MW of capacity in Jakarta. Those facilities are expected to come online in 2028. Digital Edge Indonesia and BDx Data Centers also have significant data center developments underway in the country.
But Cushman & Wakefield and 451 Research noted that developers across APAC are running into power constraints in both established markets as well as rapidly-growing secondary markets.
“In 2024, there was still a lot of questions as in how AI will really impact demand in this part of the world,” 451 Research’s Soon Chen Kang said in a recent podcast. “I think two years on the conversations have instead shifted to whether there’s really power to support all this demand.”
Read more about the burgeoning APAC data center scene here:
SoftBank's AI ambitions take shape around power, compute and cloud
Korean operators ramp up AI investments to make country an AI superpower
APAC telcos lead AI shift despite data and skills constraints