Indonesia has long prided itself on being Southeast Asia’s crown jewel for digital investment. With its massive user base, growing middle class, and ambition to become a regional technology hub, the country has been courted by global tech giants for more than a decade. Yet recent developments suggest that this status can quietly erode—not because of a dramatic policy shift, but due to regulatory signals that appear minor on the surface.

Sovereign wealth fund Danantara and Thakher Development Company have signed agreements related to acquisition of Novotel Hotel and 14 plots of land in Thakher City, Makkah, Saudi Arabia for undisclosed considerations.

Hashim Djojohadikusumo, younger brother of President Prabowo Subianto, made headlines since last year for his group’s new investments: tin solder factory, investments in ICT infrastructure company WIFI, and, recently, ownership in crypto currency trading company COIN.

Indonesia’s headline-grabbing tax crackdown on mineral and coal (minerba) companies is being presented as a routine enforcement effort. It is nothing of the sort. This is a political maneuver—one that signals an aggressive realignment of power within a sector long controlled by oligarchs who have survived every administration through a combination of regulatory opacity, regional patronage, and sheer financial muscle.

When the government launched the National Logistics Ecosystem (NLE) in 2020, it was sold as a breakthrough: a unified digital infrastructure that would finally streamline notoriously inefficient port, trucking and customs processes. At the time, the Ministry of Transportation publicly highlighted PT Logol Jakarta Mitraindo as one of the local champions contributing to the new ecosystem — a homegrown platform tasked with truck booking and electronic SP2 (gate passes), two of the most critical pain points in the supply chain.

Shares of PT Maha Properti Tbk (MPRO), a very small property developer with cash in hands less than US$1 million, ended flat at Rp11,750 on Thursday (Dec 11). At the last quoted price, MPRO, which is controlled by Tahir Family, was worth Rp116.8 trillion or around US$7 billion. That much?

Nursalim Family, owner of GT Group, has been relatively quiet in Indonesia in recent years with  only some property projects in Batam Island and Karawang, West Java (the premium outlet with Mitsubishi Estate).

Digital bank platform Superbank (SUPA) claims oversubscription in its initial public offering (IPO), but priced the shares at Rp635, little above median of price range of Rp525-695. That means Superbank will collect fresh money of Rp2.79 trillion. 

Indonesia’s digital ambitions have always been constrained not by lack of ideas but by the political economy that governs them. Komdigi’s Garuda Spark Innovation Hub—promising six hubs by 2026 and millions of “digital talents”—enters an ecosystem shaped by overlapping agendas: bureaucratic control, corporate influence, and the persistent dominance of oligarchic networks. This is the real battlefield in which Garuda Spark must operate.

Mass rapid transit (MRT) project in Bali Island seems not moving as planned due to lack of funding commitment from the central government. Private investors are struggling to get financing for the US$20 billion project, which was expected to ease traffic congestion in the resort island.