Jakarta, Indonesia Sentinel — Indonesian made AI, Sahabat AI was officially launched on Monday (June 2). The model touted as the most advanced Indonesian-language AI, surpassing popular global open-source models such as Meta’s LLaMA and several Chinese-developed LLMs.
The large language model (LLM) was developed jointly by Indonesian telecom giant Indosat and tech group GoTo, .
“Based on comparisons across available open-source models including Gemma, LLaMA, and others from China, we’re proud to say that Sahabat AI 70B is now the highest-performing Indonesian language model,” said GoTo Group CEO Patrick Walujo during the launch event in Jakarta.
He added that the model’s benchmark results can be verified on Hugging Face, a leading platform for AI model sharing.
Currently, Sahabat AI supports both text and speech, but developers are working to expand its capabilities to include image, graphic, and video processing.
Beyond Bahasa Indonesia, the upgraded Sahabat AI also supports several regional languages such as Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, and Batak, in addition to a number of international languages.
“In a world dominated by global language models, we hope Sahabat AI can stand as an alternative, built from and for Indonesia,” said Indonesia’s Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs, Meutya Hafid, during the same event.
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Designed with digital sovereignty in mind, the AI is optimized to run on infrastructure hosted locally in Indonesia. This means startups, universities, and even large public institutions can integrate the model into their operations without relying on foreign servers, ensuring compliance with national data protection regulations.
All GPU infrastructure and data processing are kept within Indonesian territory or on user-owned servers. Positioning the model as a secure and sovereign AI alternative for public services and government applications.
“Sahabat AI is not just about GoTo and Indosat. It’s a collective effort featuring contributions from universities, media organizations, and more. Together, we’re training data while preserving our cultural heritage,” said Vikram Sinha, President Director and CEO of Indosat.
Sinha added that the project aims to ensure Indonesia’s long-term AI independence. “In 10 or 20 years, we want to be in control of our own future not reliant on others,” he said.
With its latest version boasting 70 billion parameters, Sahabat AI now delivers higher accuracy and powers a new chatbot service accessible via the official site (sahabat-ai.com) and the GoPay app under the “Layanan Favorit Warga” (Citizen’s Favorite Services) menu.
(Raidi/Agung)
