Inside Jakarta’s next innovation hub, where tech and health converge

Spurred by startup culture and Indonesia’s key role in the global tech supply chain, Digital Hub within BSD City has been earmarked as the nation’s answer to Silicon Valley

Indonesia was one of the stopovers for Apple chief executive Tim Cook during a whirlwind tour through Southeast Asia in April.

On his agenda was a visit to the Apple Developer Academy, the region’s first iOS-based application development centre.

Cook’s visit foregrounds the archipelago’s growing prominence in the supply chains of global tech companies. If nothing else, it spotlights the mega township where the academy is situated: BSD City.

Little more than a swampy rubber plantation in 1984, the 6,000-hectare planned community has entered its latest era of reinvention, that of a technologically literate city. Rising within BSD City is Digital Hub, a 26-hectare ecosystem being built just for startups, tech companies, and the like—a contender for the title of Silicon Valley of Indonesia.

Digital Hub came out of a trip Michael Widjaja, CEO of developer Sinar Mas Land, took with a friend to the US several years ago. Acting on his friend’s warning—startup culture was on the rise, and the digital economy might just upend brick-and-mortar enterprises—Widjaja brainstormed for possible contingencies to ride out the disruption.

The solution, it turned out, had been hiding in plain sight. Filled with many educational institutions as well as residential projects home to 450,000 people, BSD City presented itself as a pre-existing, organic incubator for startups.

Indonesia had room for this level of innovation. The nation had been predicted to have a deficit of 9 million digitally talented workers by 2023, according to a study by the consultancy McKinsey.

“The key to developing talent is through the education system, incubators and accelerators, startup development, and experience gained in other firms,” says Irawan Harahap, CEO of digital tech ecosystem and development for Sinar Mas Land. “Digital Hub is not a residential project. Digital Hub is a commercial project…aimed at digital industry players to meet, exchange ideas, and collaborate.”

Cities need to act to address growing gridlock, create productive environments, and meet housing and healthcare needs

Digital Hub is a group effort, too, involving the masterplans of NBBJ, the Seattle-based architecture firm commissioned by companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, Samsung, and Tencent.

“To foster interaction and collaboration among tech companies, startups, and educational institutions, we focused on designing a layout that encourages them. We also incorporated sustainable practices and green spaces to create an inviting atmosphere,” says Harahap. “Our partnership with NBBJ…and our internal project management expertise helped us overcome the challenges and successfully build an ecosystem that drives innovation and collaboration.”

Sinar Mas Land covered the Digital Hub site with fibre optic connections while the township itself has a multi-modal transportation network, with toll roads speedily linking it to Jakarta.

Sinar Mas Land has also partnered with Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation and Singapore’s Surbana Jurong to build a transit-oriented project, TOD Intermoda BSD City. It integrates diverse transportation systems from a commuter line to shuttle services and electric buses.

“Cities need to act to address growing gridlock, create productive environments, and meet housing and healthcare needs—the core infrastructure that BSD City already has,” says Harahap. “Its well-built infrastructure differentiates Digital Hub from other places and cities in Indonesia— Digital Hub is in BSD City [and] BSD City has complete infrastructure.

With contractor PT TATA at the helm, construction on Digital Hub commenced in May 2017, a milestone for Sinar Mas Land. However, it was not until December 2021 that the inaugural building, Knowledge Hub, would begin construction. Amid hurdles posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, Knowledge Hub persevered, reaching its topping-off ceremony in March 2023.

“Our primary challenge in creating Digital Hub was designing a cutting-edge environment that encouraged innovation and collaboration,” says Harahap. “We had to construct a robust infrastructure to facilitate high-speed data connectivity, offer modern office spaces, and foster a sense of community and sustainability.”

Then, in December, Sinar Mas Land relaunched Knowledge Hub as a project called Biomedical Campus.

The rebrand broadens the building’s original purpose, from siring future leaders in the infotech sphere to welcoming medical professionals, whose practice has increasingly intersected with technology over the years. Covering approximately 11,800 square metres of land with a building area of around 31,800 sqm, the Smart Building of the Biomedical Campus can house clinics, pharmacies, diagnostic centres, and laboratories.

The developer is disbursing investment funds of IDR2 trillion on the project over the next few years. “Hopefully the Biomedical Campus can become a magnet for leading companies from all over the world to make Indonesia a place to develop health research and technology,” says Widjaja.

The relaunch came just several months after the health ministry’s 2023 Rakerkesnas or national work meeting, which vowed to increase the number of healthcare facilities and improve the quality of medical professionals in Indonesia.

“As we all know, Indonesia will have a demographic bonus until 2038. We will have a productive generation, and, remember, to be productive, one must be healthy,” says Airlangga Hartarto, the coordinating minister for economic affairs, in a statement. “The presence of the Biomedical Campus is crucial to creating a centre of excellence in digital-based education.”

Biomedical Campus also ties into Indonesia’s latest efforts to boost medical tourism domestically. The nation continues to see millions of its citizens going overseas every year for medical treatment.

“The Biomedical Campus, representing BSD City, aims to become Indonesia’s premier destination for medical tourism, fulfilling the community’s need for top-quality healthcare facilities,” explains Harahap. “This vision is to bridge the gap of the reality that many Indonesians seek treatment abroad because domestic health services and medical technology are not up to par.”

Eyeing completion in 2024, the Biomedical Campus has inked partnerships with organisations in the health sector such as Asa Ren, Careoth Inc., PT Etana Biotechnologies Indonesia, Fullerton Health Indonesia, Pathgen Diagnostic Tekno, and Pyridam Farma.

Sinar Mas Land is using Microsoft’s Azure Digital Twins to automate various building management systems in Digital Hub. The systems are designed to optimise the efficient, cost-effective allocation of resources and support occupant comfort.

Digital Hub is expected to gracefully ride the wave of nascent industries such as generative AI. In November, Sinar Mas Land announced that it had tapped Microsoft to incorporate chatbot tech, alongside Azure’s OpenAI Service and Cognitive Search, to power the “ask” feature in the hub’s OneSmile application.

Digital Hub is also designed to operate with a visitor management system (VMS), expediting and securing access to the campus via face recognition and QR code entry.

The hub is currently a mix of commercial lots, in sizes ranging from 3,000 sqm to two hectares, plus strata-title business lofts. Sinar Mas Land has invited the startup Imajin to put up the Advance Manufacturing Centre and Makerspace. These spaces allow would-be innovators to ideate product prototypes, use advanced machinery, and execute solutions for the manufacturing industry, a pillar of the Indonesian economy.

With Digital Hub, Sinar Mas Land does not just aim to create a tech-oriented component of BSD City but also remould an entire township. “Digital Hub is a starting point for BSD City to transform into a smart city fully,” says Harahap.

“Nations that are slowly adopting digital technologies risk falling further behind in a short time due to the rapid pace of technological advancement. Indonesia has yet to make significant strides in the digital revolution, but this presents an opportunity for growth.”

The original version of this article appeared in PropertyGuru Property Report Magazine Issue No. 184 on issuu and Magzter. Write to our editors at [email protected].