JAKARTA – The government will build a special economic area (KEK) in Sukabumi, West Java. The project, named Bukit Algoritma, will become a technology and research center such as Silicon Valley in the United States (USA).

Silicon Valley itself is a term for an area in the Santa Clara Valley that is south of the Bay Area, San Francisco. Home to many of the headquarters of the world’s giant tech companies.

Seeing the success of Silicon Valley, not a few countries in the world are vying to duplicate the center of the technology. One of them is in Shenzen city, Beijing, China which is known as the headquarters of Huawei and Xiaomi.

In Indonesia itself, duplicate Silicon Valley did have time to surface. Some locations that had been built into Silicon Valley Indonesia include Malang, Yogyakarta, BSD Serpong, to Batam.

The latest, appeared Bukit Algoritma Sukabumi developed by a state-owned construction company, PT Amarta Karya (Persero). The development of West Java’s version of Silicon Valley is estimated to cost up to 1 billion Euros or equivalent to Rp18 trillion.

“This area will be one of the centers for the development of innovation and advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, drones (drones), to solar panels for clean and environmentally friendly energy,” said President Director of PT Amarta Karya (Persero), Nikolas Agung.

An area of 888 hectares in Cikidang and Cibadak, Sukabumi was chosen as the location of Algoritma Hill. Early-stage development is expected to take three years.

Bukit Algoritma is expected to be a research and technology development center, as well as a center for human resource development in the future. In particular the development of technology and industry 4.0.

The concept of building the Bukit Algoritma area refers to Silicon Valley, which is home to the world’s largest technology companies. Let’s say Apple, Google, Facebook, Intel, and Netflix have offices there.

Many large companies were born in Silicon Valley, making the region an attractive target for venture capitalists as well as investors. There are several major cities in Silicon Valley such as San Jose, Mountain View, Menlo Park, Cupertino, Palo Alto, and others.

So where does the name Silicon Valley come from? According to Business Insider, in the early 1900s, the area where Silicon Valley is now is referred to as the “Valley of Heart’s Delight”. The name was pinned because previously this area became a land for fruit plantations in San Francisco.

In the late 19th century, San Francisco became the center of the telegraph and radio industries. San José, one of the major cities in Silicon Valley, later became the site of one of the first radio stations in the United States.

Later in 1933, the area became a hub for military technology development after the U.S. Navy purchased Moffett Field airport to dock the airship USS Macon. Silicon Valley began to change when William Hewlett and Dave Packard founded Hewlett-Packard (HP) in Palo Alto, in 1939.

In the 19450s, the region became the center of semiconductor labs development that made transitors of silicon chips. This chipset is an important component in almost all devices in digital, so the region earned the nickname Silicon Valley.

The name Silicon Valley was first used by journalist Don Loefler in an article titled ‘Silicon Valley USA’ published in Electronic News on January 11, 1971. At the time he wrote about the semiconductor industry in a valley in Santa Clara, San Francisco. (VOI)