When most students were stressing over thesis deadlines, Adhiguna Kuncoro was busy writing about something that—back in 2013—still felt like pure science fiction: Artificial Intelligence. From his small dorm in Bandung’s Ciumbuleuit, he couldn’t have imagined that this risky choice would launch him straight into the global epicenter of AI research—Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, and now DeepMind, Google’s world-famous AI lab in London.

Today, Adhiguna is the only Indonesian researcher at DeepMind, helping build Gemini, the large language model (LLM) that powers next-generation chatbots. His work ensures machines can not only speak our language but understand it.

 
A Journey Paved with Setbacks—and Breakthroughs
Adhiguna’s path wasn’t smooth. At Oxford, he actually failed two courses in his first semester—one of them machine learning. Instead of quitting, he doubled down. Later, at Carnegie Mellon, he specialized in Natural Language Processing (NLP), a field that would define his career.

By 2017, he joined DeepMind, working alongside the brightest AI minds in the world. His professor at Oxford—who once worked at DeepMind—described him as “the best candidate, combining depth, creativity, and unique expertise in NLP.”

 
Mission: AI for Everyone, Not Just the Elite
But Adhiguna’s vision goes beyond big tech labs. He believes AI should serve real-world problems in Indonesia—from tackling teacher shortages in rural areas to improving healthcare access in remote villages.

“The wealthy may be able to afford private tutors. But AI can help underprivileged children gain the same quality of education,” he says.

He’s already walked the talk: launching AI Summer School in Jakarta (2019), securing Google sponsorship worth Rp500 million, and releasing an open-source Indonesian language dataset to help researchers back home.

 
The Challenges Ahead
Despite the breakthroughs, there’s still a gap: Indonesian data is scarce compared to English. This makes AI less effective in local contexts—a problem Adhiguna is determined to solve by pushing for more collaboration between global AI labs and Southeast Asia.

Cybersecurity experts also warn of risks: from hyper-personalized phishing scams to AI-generated hoaxes. For Adhiguna, this only strengthens the need for both innovation and regulation—so that AI empowers people without opening doors to abuse.

 
A Message to Indonesia’s Next Gen
Adhiguna’s biggest advice for young Indonesians? Dare to dream, dare to fail.

“We are no less intelligent than people from China or India. The difference is, they dare to dream bigger,” he says. “Don’t be afraid of failure. What matters is getting back up.”

From flunking courses to leading cutting-edge AI projects, his story proves that failure isn’t the end—it’s the training ground for something bigger.