ASIATODAY.ID, JAKARTA — The President Director of PT Vale Indonesia Tbk (INCO), Bernadus Irmanto, has openly criticized China’s technological dominance in Indonesia’s nickel industry, arguing that the country’s biggest obstacle in creating real value-added production is no longer labor or local participation, but its structural dependence on foreign technology.
Speaking at the Indonesia Weekend Miner forum in Jakarta on Saturday, January 24, 2026, Bernadus said public debates on nickel downstreaming have focused excessively on investment figures and job creation, while largely ignoring the most decisive factor in industrial competitiveness: control over technology.
“If we are truly talking about value creation, what must be addressed wisely is technology,” Bernadus said.
Downstreaming Without Technological Sovereignty
Indonesia holds the world’s largest nickel reserves, a strategic advantage underpinning its ambition to become a global hub for electric vehicle batteries.
Yet the technologies that generate the highest value in nickel processing remain overwhelmingly controlled by foreign players—primarily China.
This situation leaves Indonesia in a strategic paradox: resource-rich, yet constrained in industrial sovereignty.
“From a technological standpoint, it is indeed owned by China. The majority of nickel investments in Indonesia rely on Chinese technology,” Bernadus acknowledged.
Nickel Reserves as Strategic Leverage
From Vale Indonesia’s perspective, Bernadus argued that nickel reserves should serve as a strategic bargaining tool, not merely as an incentive to attract downstream investment.
Rather than focusing solely on capital inflows, Indonesia should leverage its mineral wealth to secure technology transfer, industrial learning, and long-term technological independence.
Bernadus’ view is reinforced by his experience engaging with global market players in Europe and North America. In international forums, he said, one question consistently arises.
“The question is always the same: can Indonesia supply nickel with less Chinese components? But the reality is that almost all supply chains still contain Chinese elements,” he said.
A Pragmatic Starting Point: Owning the Plants
Bernadus stressed that Indonesia must adopt a pragmatic approach if it wants to increase domestic content in the nickel industry.
At a minimum, he said, Indonesia needs to own and control the processing plants and their operations.
By doing so, Indonesia could at least claim that nickel production is under the control of national entities. However, he warned that this approach carries its own risks.
“How can we control operations if we do not understand the technology?” Bernadus said.
Operating factories without mastering the underlying technology, he argued, could create new vulnerabilities rather than strengthening industrial control.
Technology Access as a Non-Negotiable
For this reason, Bernadus emphasized that access to technology must become a core requirement in every form of cooperation—whether through joint ventures (JVs) or investment agreements.
Vale Indonesia, he said, is attempting to leverage its resources and corporate credibility to open pathways for technology transfer. The objective is clear and time-bound.
Within the next two to three years, Indonesia should at least be capable of controlling and maintaining nickel operations, even if it has not yet fully mastered core processing technologies.
In parallel, research and development (R&D) must become an inseparable component of downstream projects, rather than an afterthought.
Nickel Is No Longer a Neutral Commodity
Bernadus also warned that nickel can no longer be treated as a neutral commodity. While it was once broadly accessible to all countries as a driver of industrialization, its status has fundamentally changed.
Today, nickel has become a political commodity. Countries that control processing technologies wield far greater power in shaping global industrial direction.
To illustrate his point, Bernadus cited the book Mining Is Dead, Long Live Geopolitics, which he said accurately captures the current dynamics of the global mining and resource industry.
Indonesia’s Strategic Paradox
In Indonesia’s case, the paradox is stark. The country possesses the world’s largest nickel reserves and a vast domestic market, yet lacks technological mastery—the very factor that determines strategic power.
Without a decisive leap in technological capability, Indonesia’s nickel downstreaming push risks stopping at production volume, rather than advancing toward control of the highest-value segments of the global supply chain.
As Indonesia positions itself at the heart of the global energy transition, the central question is no longer how much nickel it owns—but whether it can transform resource dominance into technological and geopolitical influence. (AT Network)
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