Indonesia’s tech scene just made a huge leap. GoTo Group and Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison have officially launched Sahabat-AI, a groundbreaking open-source large language model (LLM) with 70 billion parameters.
Designed specifically for the Indonesian population, Sahabat-AI offers a multilingual chat service that supports both local and international languages. It’s now live and available through the GoPay app, making it instantly accessible to millions.
What is Sahabat-AI?
Sahabat-AI is Indonesia’s own AI model, built to reflect the country’s rich language and culture. It’s one of the largest and most advanced models in Southeast Asia.
It supports five major local languages:
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Javanese
- Sundanese
- Balinese
- Bataknese
It also understands several international languages, allowing it to serve a wide range of users across the country, from city tech workers to villagers in remote areas.
A Step Toward Digital Sovereignty
One of the key goals behind Sahabat-AI is digital sovereignty. The model is built and hosted entirely in Indonesia, ensuring that it meets national data protection standards.
It runs on Indosat’s GPU Merdeka, a sovereign cloud platform designed to support safe, scalable, and local AI development. This ensures data privacy, regulatory compliance, and national ownership of key digital infrastructure.
AI by Indonesians, for Indonesians
Sahabat-AI is a true gotong royong (mutual cooperation) project. It brings together universities, government bodies, media houses, and tech companies to create an AI that is culturally relevant and locally trained.
Key collaborators include:
- Universities: University of Indonesia, Gadjah Mada University, Bandung Institute of Technology, IPB University, University of Udayana, and University of Sumatera Utara
- Media partners: Kompas, Republika, Tempo, and Hukumonline
These institutions help shape the model’s understanding of local content, language, and context, ensuring it’s useful across sectors like education, media, governance, and customer service.
Easy Access via GoPay
Using Sahabat-AI is simple. Just open the GoPay app and find it under “Popular Services.” Users can chat, ask questions, and receive helpful, natural responses in real-time.
This makes AI more approachable while reducing costs and improving support for businesses and customers across the GoTo ecosystem.
Conclusion
With the release of the 70 billion parameter Sahabat-AI model, Indonesia has turned a page in its AI journey, and with its local talent and infrastructure, and values, it shows the country’s commitment to charting its course in the global AI landscape.
With Sahabat-AI, Indonesia is closer to becoming a regional AI powerhouse—not just powerful technology, but inclusive, safe, and culturally informed technology.
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