🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Key questions remain unanswered in Indonesia’s semiconductor roadmap

• The plan lists four pillars, including fabrication, yet it gives no dollar figure or funding pledge to carry it out.
• Chip fabrication plants often cost several billion dollars, so the lack of a budget leaves a large gap in how the project would be paid for.
• It also skips a choice between cutting-edge chips and mature-node chips (older, more established manufacturing processes), which changes the investment needed and the customers Indonesia could serve.
• No schedule appears for reaching technology independence or cutting the reported US$4.9 billion in semiconductor imports from January to November 2025, so it is hard to judge whether the targets are realistic.

A focus on design could be Indonesia’s smartest move in a diversifying tech world

• Governments worldwide are spreading chip supply chains across more countries to improve resilience and reduce reliance on a few dominant manufacturing regions.
• Indonesia aims to grow its domestic semiconductor industry, which could place it as a new node in a more distributed global technology network.
• The Indonesia Chip Design Collaborative Center (ICDEC) points to a near-term bet on chip design plus domestically owned intellectual property (IP) alongside the four-pillar roadmap.
• Chip design needs less upfront capital than fabrication, letting Indonesia build IP and train workers before it takes on multi-billion dollar manufacturing projects.