Meutya Hafid Says Indonesia Must Set Its Own Pace for AI Development
Indonesia must set its own pace for artificial intelligence development rather than let foreign governments or technology companies dictate the speed, Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said at Bali Tech Week 2026 in Sanur on Monday, October 19, ANTARA News reported.
Speaking to an audience that organisers said would grow to more than 4,000 people from 32 countries over a five-day programme, Meutya pointed to a global split: the United States under President Donald Trump is pushing faster AI innovation, while some technology firms argue development is already too fast given the risks. Indonesia, she said, should choose a speed that matches its human-capital and resource capacity so that government, industry and other stakeholders stay aligned. Choosing that middle path is harder than naming it, because talent, power and compute still arrive on uneven schedules across the archipelago.
She asked experts, industry players and other stakeholders for input on that balance, arguing that innovation must grow while basic human needs stay protected. The ministry is using Bali Tech Week to collect those views. Meutya also said the government is preparing AI regulation and a development roadmap, and running digital-talent programmes to support adoption.
What it means in practice
The speech sharpens the sovereignty line already visible in Komdigi’s study of AI content-labelling rules and plans for sector-specific AI rules in health, education and finance. It also echoes officials’ warnings that agentic AI needs hard human-control limits.
For Indonesian startups and ministries, “set our own pace” is both a political slogan and a procurement hint: tools and timelines should fit local skills and infrastructure, not Silicon Valley release calendars. The open question is how that principle will be written into the forthcoming roadmap and whether foreign platforms face different duties from domestic developers.
What to watch: the substance of any roadmap draft that follows Bali Tech Week, which sectors get rules first, and whether Meutya’s pace framing shows up in budget and talent programmes for 2027.