Indosat Plans Low-Band 5G Across Its Nationwide Footprint

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison is using its Indosat AI Grid 5G modernisation plan to turn a mobile-network upgrade into a distributed AI platform.

Vikram Sinha, the operator's president director and chief executive, said the Nokia programme will add low-band 5G across Indosat's full footprint, while mid-band 5G is expected to reach about 80% of the network within a three-and-a-half-year rollout window.

Sinha said the upgraded 5G RAN will provide a common architecture for connectivity and intelligence.

He described the AI Grid as a mix of centralised AI Factories and distributed AI computing capacity placed closer to users across Indonesia.

The stated ambition is broader than radio performance.

Sinha said the architecture is meant to let Indonesian-developed AI models and applications run in more places, including areas outside the largest urban markets.

Indosat is also using physical AI access points to make the plan visible before national AI-RAN deployment, including AI experience centres in Solo and Jayapura, Papua, an AI-RAN innovation centre in Surabaya and the Nvidia AI technology centre.

Those sites give the operator a training and testing layer while the wider radio upgrade proceeds.

Sahabat AI Gives The Rollout Its First Application Layer

Indosat is linking the network plan to Sahabat AI, its Indonesian-language AI model.

Sinha said Sahabat AI is already being used in government services, healthcare, education and agriculture, and he named public services, industry and digital services as sectors that could use the upgraded network.

The executive also named education, healthcare and enterprise functions as early application areas.

He said Sahabat AI is being used to support teachers and students, assist medical professionals as a digital co-pilot, and support business functions such as HR, finance and operations.

Those uses remain operator-described claims rather than independently measured adoption results.

Indosat did not publish customer counts, deployment volumes, service revenue or audited performance data for Sahabat AI in the material.

Nokia And Nvidia Remain Part Of The AI-RAN Roadmap

The 5G modernisation follows Nokia's announcement that it will supply new radio, baseband, Centralized RAN and automation technology for Indosat.

Nokia, Indosat and Nvidia are also collaborating on AI-RAN development.

Nokia's announcement said the companies planned field trials in Indonesia by the end of 2026 after demonstrating their first AI-RAN call at Mobile World Congress 2026.

Sinha said the modernisation supports future AI-RAN architecture and AI-enabled services with Nokia and Nvidia.

He said future uses could include Vision AI for cameras, sensors and drones, as well as Physical AI for robotics, automation and industrial operations.

The named examples keep the project centred on edge computing and network intelligence, not only national-language chatbot access.

Indosat Does Not Name Site Counts Or Commercial AI Grid Customers

The rollout still lacks several commercial details.

Sinha said Indosat is not disclosing the specific number of sites involved, and the material did not disclose capex, named enterprise AI Grid customers, service pricing, customer-level Sahabat AI adoption data or firm launch dates for the future Vision AI and Physical AI services.