Salim buys out Keppel, relaunches Indonesian venture as IndoData

The asset Salim Group bought when it took full control of its Indonesian data center venture is less the 5 MW that came online in 2022 than the reservation for up to 500 MW of state utility power attached to the project. Salim has bought out Keppel's stake in the venture the two companies formed in 2018, taking full ownership and relaunching it as IndoData Data Center after a December close announced this week; no terms were shared.

The venture, previously IndoKeppel Data Centres, was first announced as a partnership for a facility in Bogor City outside Jakarta, and its first 5 MW phase, originally scheduled for 2020, reached operation in 2022 after Covid-19 delays. IndoData now says it holds up to 500 MW of power capacity under contract with PLN, the state utility; the gap between that ceiling and the 5 MW in operation is what Salim paid for.

The 'up to' in that statement is the operative phrase. 500 MW is a ceiling on reserved power, not a schedule of committed demand, and the company has started converting that headroom into live load. Ronald Setiawan, formerly an IndoKeppel director and now IndoData's managing director, said the company has completed and delivered an additional 6 MW of IT load for an existing hyperscale client as a built-to-suit expansion, suggesting the reserve is being drawn down tenant by tenant rather than marketed speculatively.

The standalone structure is itself a statement. The original joint venture paired Keppel's operating expertise with Salim's local position; after eight years the project has one operational phase and a large power reservation, and Salim has evidently decided the asset is better run alone. The buyout leaves Salim Group, controlled by Anthoni Salim, as sole owner, and Salim already holds a stake in DCI Indonesia while his Hong Kong-listed First Pacific controls Philippine telco PLDT. The wider portfolio spans Indofood, Indomobil, and Indomaret; for a group whose assets historically run to flour, cars, and convenience stores, a utility-scale power contract is a new kind of anchor. The purchase turns a joint project into a wholly owned platform that no longer needs a foreign equity partner.

The 6 MW delivery is the operational news; the 500 MW contract is the strategic one. A grid slot is worth more than the hardware behind it, and IndoData's secured PLN capacity is exactly that kind of power position. Keppel is exiting a venture that took four years to reach 5 MW; Salim is buying a 500 MW power position with a data center attached. The metric to watch is how much of that contracted capacity converts into delivered hyperscale load—and at what pace the 5 MW start becomes a 500 MW platform. The deeper trend is the same one that moved Nvidia into Cloverleaf and developers into generation: the bottleneck has shifted from land and chips to power.