Indonesia’s sovereign investment arm Danantara has taken a step toward building a domestic semiconductor base through a strategic framework agreement with UK-headquartered Arm Limited, a leader in global chip design, according to its official statement on Tuesday.
The agreement, which is aimed at enhancing Indonesia’s technological self-reliance and the upstream semiconductor capability, was signed in the presence of President Prabowo Subianto during his London visit on Feb. 23.
The signing ceremony was also attended by Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto and Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Bahlil Lahadalia, among others. Danantara’s CEO, Rosan Perkasa Roeslani, represented the sovereign fund at the ceremony.
The framework pact between Danantara and Arm seeks to lay the groundwork for collaboration across training, technology transfer and semiconductor design development.
Arm commands significant global market share in key design segments, including approximately 96% of automotive chip technology and nearly 94% of data centre and artificial intelligence chip designs, making it a strategic partner for Indonesia’s ambition to deepen its presence in chip ecosystems.
According to officials, the agreement will support the training of as many as 15,000 Indonesian engineers. The partnership envisions a mix of sending engineers abroad for training and bringing Arm trainers to Indonesia with tailored modules, part of a broader effort to cultivate local chip design expertise.
The agreement comes against the backdrop of Indonesia’s wider semiconductor ambitions. Previously outlined plans envisage an initial budget of roughly $125 million to jump-start a national semiconductor ecosystem with Arm, spanning design to later stages of chip development, though the broader strategy remains a multiyear and complex undertaking.
For Danantara, established under law in early 2025 to manage state strategic assets and accelerate investments in priority sectors, the Arm collaboration represents one of its first major technology-sector initiatives.
