UGM Indosat NVIDIA AI Technology Center Officially Launched, Strengthening Smart Agriculture Development at UGM

Universitas Gadjah Mada together with Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and NVIDIA officially launched the UGM Indosat NVIDIA AI Technology Center at the UGM Innovation and Creativity Building (GIK), Thursday (13/8). This technology center is part of efforts to build an artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem in Indonesia through strengthening talent, research, technology, and collaboration. The launch was attended by Indonesia's Minister of Communication and Digital Meutya Hafid, Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology Prof. Stella Christie, Ph.D., Prof. Dr. Fauzan, M.Pd., UGM Rector Prof. dr. Ova Emilia, Ph.D., President Director & CEO Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison Vikram Sinha, and NVIDIA Vice President Solutions Architecture and Engineering Marc Hamilton.

The UGM Indosat NVIDIA AI Technology Center was established as an AI innovation hub that brings together government, industry, technology, and academia. This center is the result of collaboration between the Ministry of Communication and Digital (Komdigi), Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, NVIDIA, and UGM. Through this collaboration, students and researchers can gain access to technology, expertise, and an AI research ecosystem to develop solutions suited to Indonesia's needs.

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The launch of the AI Technology Center also strengthens UGM's commitment to developing AI applications across various fields. The center focuses on developing AI talent through learning, training, and mentoring, while encouraging applied research that can address challenges in various sectors. Additionally, the AI Technology Center provides access to NVIDIA technology and the global AI ecosystem, and promotes collaboration and downstream implementation of innovations from the campus environment toward implementation in industry and society.

In the agricultural field, the Smart Agriculture Research Center (Smartagri) of UGM from the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, is part of UGM's flagship research in developing and utilizing AI for agriculture. The Smartagri team is coordinated by Ir. Andri Prima Nugroho, S.T.P., M.Sc., Ph.D., IPU., ASEAN Eng., APEC Eng., who directs and guides the development of various Smart Agriculture research. Smartagri's participation in this launch series demonstrates the research contributions that UGM has developed in building an AI-based Smart Agriculture ecosystem, while strengthening Smartagri's position as a center of excellence in utilizing AI to support agricultural transformation.

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One of Smartagri's research showcased during the UGM Indosat NVIDIA AI Technology Center launch is the development of peilschaal technology to measure irrigation water surface levels on agricultural land using computer vision and AI. This research was developed by Widi Kuntara Muladi Putra under the guidance of Ir. Andri Prima Nugroho, S.T.P., M.Sc., Ph.D., IPU., ASEAN Eng., APEC Eng. and Dr. Murtiningrum, S.T.P., M.Eng. This technology is an example of AI application in Smart Agriculture that utilizes data to support irrigation condition monitoring and decision-making in agricultural management.

The development of such peilschaal technology is part of the Smart and Integrated Agriculture approach developed to encourage AI utilization in building more intelligent and integrated agricultural systems. Processing various agricultural data with AI support is expected to help generate better information for understanding agricultural conditions and supporting decision-making. In the discussion presented, AI development for agriculture is directed at transforming data into knowledge, recommendations, and actions through the integration of machine learning, computer vision, and data fusion.

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SmartAgri UGM has developed various research and technology applications that integrate agricultural data with AI. These contributions include technology development for open-field agriculture, plantations, irrigation, greenhouses, plant factories, and knowledge management. These various research efforts demonstrate the utilization of AI and digital technology to support agricultural condition monitoring, data analysis, and data-driven decision-making.

Infrastructure support is one important part in developing the AI Technology Center. One example is GPU Merdeka, a GPU-as-a-Service offering that provides access to high-performance AI computing without having to build infrastructure independently. This infrastructure can be used for training and fine-tuning AI models, developing computer vision, processing large-scale data, and supporting various AI-based research and innovation activities.

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For agricultural technology development, such computing support can open greater opportunities for data processing and AI model development. Large quantities of agricultural data require significant computational processing, especially when used for developing computer vision models, data analysis, or various other AI-based systems. With access to AI infrastructure available, research and technology development processes in agriculture can be conducted with more adequate computing support.

The development of Smart and Integrated Agriculture in the AI Technology Center also demonstrates that AI utilization is not only directed at technology development, but at its application to solve real-world problems. In the agricultural sector, AI technology can be part of efforts to understand agricultural conditions more accurately and support the decision-making process. This aligns with the needs of Indonesian agriculture, which increasingly requires data-driven approaches to increase productivity and adaptive capacity.

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Smartagri's participation in UGM's AI flagship research at the UGM Indosat NVIDIA AI Technology Center launch is a momentum to strengthen the relationship between agricultural research, AI technology, computing infrastructure, and the needs of industry and society. Cross-disciplinary collaboration is an important part of Smart Agriculture development, as expertise in agriculture, engineering, data, policy, industry, and user experience must be connected from problem formulation through field implementation.

Through the UGM Indosat NVIDIA AI Technology Center, collaboration between academia, industry, government, and technology providers is expected to continue developing. For Smartagri, this ecosystem opens opportunities to connect agricultural research with developments in AI technology and available computing infrastructure. The development and utilization of this technology also contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) through support for agricultural productivity and resilience, and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) through the development of innovations and technology infrastructure for agriculture. The presence of this center is one step toward promoting the development of increasingly intelligent, integrated agricultural technology capable of delivering benefits to Indonesian agriculture.