Indonesia sovereign wealth fund INA targets data centres, AI in healthcare, renewables

SINGAPORE, Sept 17 (Reuters) - The Indonesia Investment Authority is prioritising digital infrastructure, healthcare and renewables as the sovereign wealth fund seeks foreign partners and supports the nation's economic development, its chief investment officer told Reuters.

INA was established in 2020 and started operations in 2021 with $5 billion in capital from the government and a dual mandate to generate returns and foster sustainable growth. It initially focused on direct equity investments to bring in foreign co-investors.

Sign up here.

The fund, which now manages 163.4 trillion rupiah ($10 billion) in assets, has since added hybrid capital and private credit to help Indonesian companies expand overseas and draw technical expertise and capital into the country.

INA is Indonesia's first sovereign wealth fund, but now the smaller of two, following the launch in February of Daya Anagata Nusantara Investment Management Agency (Danantara), a broader fund seeded with $20 billion in state assets.

"As our government thinks more about data independence and data resiliency, obviously there will be more demand for such data centres," Christopher Ganis, INA's CIO, said in an interview on the sidelines of the SuperReturn Asia conference in Singapore.

"Data centres and everything that support the digital infrastructure, sub-sea cables, that will be an interesting sector for us as well," he added.

INA formed partnerships including with Singapore-based multi-asset firm Granite Asia to jointly invest over $1.2 billion into Indonesia's tech and AI ecosystem and backed projects such as the DayOne data centre campus in Batam.

"AI is definitely something on my radar, but I don't want to just be a lemming and just follow the herd," he said. "Maybe we do an AI application first in healthcare."

Ganis said Asia's bank-dominated financing structure underpins INA's push into non-bank options and support for cross-border growth.

"When you have international expansion, your domestic bank in Jakarta cannot support international expansion. Your destination of the investment doesn't know who you are yet. So who knows you. That's where we come in," he said.

Ganis said INA's priority remains Indonesia-linked investments.

"Right now, there's a lot more priority at home," he said. "I don't see a reason where I can justify it to the people of Indonesia in saying, I want to invest overseas (in a project) that has nothing to do with Indonesia."

($1 = 16,435.0000 rupiah)

Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui; Editing by Scott Murdoch and Lincoln Feast.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab