Indonesia’s technology leaders, in collaboration with NVIDIA and its partners, have launched Sahabat-AI, a collection of open-source large language models (LLMs) designed to serve over 277 million Indonesian speakers. Built with NVIDIA NeMo and NIM microservices, Sahabat-AI focuses on enabling digital sovereignty and inclusivity by providing local industries, governments, and researchers with tools to develop generative AI applications tailored for Indonesian languages and contexts. The initiative, celebrated during Indonesia AI Day, is supported by a public-private partnership embodying the spirit of community collaboration known as “gotong royong.” Key players such as Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) and its subsidiary Lintasarta have contributed to this effort by establishing the NVIDIA-accelerated GPU Merdeka AI cloud, which powers Sahabat-AI while promoting sustainability through renewable energy infrastructure.
Among Sahabat-AI’s pioneering collaborators is Hippocratic AI, a healthcare-focused AI company leveraging the models to transform patient care across Indonesia. By integrating Sahabat-AI with its trillion-parameter healthcare LLM architecture and IOH’s sovereign AI cloud, Hippocratic AI is developing empathetic digital agents capable of assisting patients with humanlike interactions. These AI-powered agents offload routine administrative tasks, enhancing healthcare accessibility and freeing up medical professionals for critical duties. The integration ensures secure, localized handling of sensitive patient data while maintaining low-latency AI inference, showcasing the potential for AI to revolutionize Indonesia’s healthcare system and address societal challenges effectively.