SMPlus Digital Investama (SM+), controlled by Indonesia’s Widjaja family, is partnering with Korea Investment Real Asset Management (Kira), backed by tycoon Kim Nam-goo, to develop a $300 million data center in Jakarta’s business district.
In a statement this week, the Widjaja’s Sinar Mas group announced plans for the new facility scheduled to become operational by mid-2026. The company said the facility will have the capacity to triple its output, though details about its location and specific production capacity were not disclosed.
“This new data center will provide the best facilities and services that are essential to advancing digital transformation in various sectors in Indonesia, including finance, industry, government, public services, and education,” Franky Oesman Widjaja, a member of the Sinar Mas board of directors, said in the statement.
LG Sinarmas Technology Solutions, a joint venture between SM+ and Korean firm LG CNS, will design and manage the new data center. The joint venture was established in March.
SM+ is a unit of Dian Swastika Sentosa (DSSA), the Indonesian-listed coal mining company in the Sinar Mas Group. Last December, DSSA acquired data centers from Smartfren Telecom, the Sinar Mas Group’s telecommunications subsidiary, for 544 billion rupiah ($35 million) as part of the conglomerate’s expansion of its data center operations.
Ranking 4th on the Indonesia’s 50 Richest list released last December, the Widjaja family boasts a $10.8 billion net worth. Eka Tjipta Widjaja, a Chinese immigrant who founded the Sinar Mas conglomerate, passed away in January 2019 at the age of 98. Starting as a teenager selling biscuits, Widjaja grew Sinar Mas into a diversified multinational corporation with interests in telecommunications, paper production, financial services, real estate, agribusiness and mining.
Kira is a unit of Korea Investment Holdings, a publicly traded Korean company with diverse financial interests including banking, asset management, private equity and hedge funds. Kim Nam-goo, the chief executive and largest shareholder of Korea Investment Holdings, the country’s sole non-banking financial holding company, is the eldest son of Dongwon Group founder Kim Jae-chul. He joined Dongwon Securities, the precursor to Korea Investment Holdings, in 1991. In 2021, Kim was ranked 41st on Korea’s 50 Richest list with a net worth of $1.2 billion, but he was dropped from the list the following year as his company’s stock price fell.
