Discussing BioInformatic Research with Indonesia’s Top Oil Palm Companies

Alongside with the team from INSTIPER AIRICA (AI Research and Innovation Center for Agroindustry), team BDSRC and AI R&D Center visited Indonesia’s most well-known companies in local oil palm industry: PT. Bumitama Gunajaya Agro (BGA), PT. Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology(SMART), and PT. Astra Agro Lestari. Empowering oil palm industry with AI is necessary since oil palm is one of Indonesia’s major comodity.

From all discussions, there were two recurring points emerged. The first point is the importance of AI research in oil palm genomics. This point is critical for Indonesia oil palm industries to stay competitive in international market. The second point is the strategy to adopt AI for more automation in oil palm plantation. By improving automation, oil palm companies can cut cost production significantly, which leads to more profit.