The government runs the Kedaireka Matching Fund Grant Program to connect businesses and industries with universities in developing digital talents in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science, Robotics, and more. As part of this program, the Faculty of Computer Science (FIK) at Dian Nuswantoro University (Udinus) in Semarang has been entrusted with managing a Kedaireka Matching Fund grant worth the equivalent of 8 billion rupiah.
The Kedaireka Matching Fund Grant is part of the Indonesian government’s effort, through the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, to support President Joko Widodo’s policy in entering the era of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and accelerating digital transformation. The main mission of the Kedaireka Matching Fund is to create digital talent in AI, Data Science, and Robotics together with industry partners. Today, universities are expected to produce digitally skilled human resources to help shape Indonesia’s Golden Generation in 2045.
To meet these demands, Udinus, through the Kedaireka Matching Fund, has become one of the centers for developing digital talent, especially in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science, and Robotics. This grant at Udinus is managed by the Udinus Center of Excellence (CoE), which brings together multiple disciplines across the university, including computer science, health sciences, economics, and cultural studies—led by the Faculty of Computer Science.
In addition to supporting various disciplines within Udinus, the Kedaireka Matching Fund also serves partner universities (both their lecturers and students) to strengthen Indonesia’s digital talent and improve the performance of industries, enabling them to compete and collaborate more effectively in today’s digital business era.
This effort to strengthen Indonesia’s digital talent and enhance industry performance for competition and collaboration in the digital era is made possible with the support of a supercomputer from NVIDIA, which is set to be installed at Udinus in late October or early November 2021. “This supercomputer will serve as a stepping stone for accelerating digital transformation in AI, Data Science, and Robotics—especially at Udinus, and more broadly in Indonesia,” explained the Director of the Udinus Center of Excellence (CoE), Prof. Zainal A. Hasibuan, Ph.D., popularly known as Prof. Ucok.
As more digital talents in AI, Data Science, and Robotics are developed, it is expected that more people will engage in research, community service, and integrate their work into education—ensuring that what is taught and researched remains relevant to the nation’s needs.
Prof. Ucok also explained that Udinus will provide many contributions to Indonesia in the future. One of these is offering insights into big data processing and pattern recognition, all of which will be valuable for various types of businesses in the industrial sector.
Regarding the receipt of the Kedaireka grant, the Dean of FIK Udinus, Dr. Guruh Fajar Shidik, S.Kom., M.Cs, explained the progress of Kedaireka initiatives at Udinus, which will continue into next year. This trust from the government also motivates FIK Udinus to keep developing digital talents in AI, Data Science, Robotics, and more across Indonesia. With the extraordinary supercomputer, they will be able to tackle various challenges faced by the nation in multiple sectors.
“We also hope to conduct deeper research and produce practical findings that can be directly utilized by the wider community,” Guruh concluded.
The supercomputer installed at Udinus has impressive specifications. It features a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) capacity of 320 gigabytes (GB), consisting of eight Video Graphics Array (VGA) cards, each with 40 GB capacity. Meanwhile, the Central Processing Unit (CPU) has 128 cores.
A supercomputer with such capacity can process AI and big data learning models on a large scale. By comparison, a standard server typically has a GPU capacity of only 6–8 GB and a CPU with a maximum of 64 cores. (Udinus PR/Alex. Photo: Udinus PR)
