Presented at the UK–Indonesia Health Genomics Forum, London, 25 November 2025 When we speak about the future of precision medicine, it is easy to focus on the technology. We talk about sequencing platforms, AI systems, analytical pipelines and discovery engines. Yet the real foundation of precision medicine is something much more fundamental. Precision medicine cannot be precise if the global datasets that feed it continue to exclude most of humanity. This was the central argument I presented at the UK–Indonesia Health Genomics Forum 2025. I began with a simple observation. Around 80 percent of genomic discovery data comes from individuals of European ancestry. Entire regions such as Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America and Indigenous nations remain significantly underrepresented, even though they contain some of the richest reservoirs of human genetic diversity in the world. This imbalance is not abstract. It shapes the tools we build. It influences which drug targets rise to the top of development pipelines. It affects the accuracy of polygenic risk scores. It affects how AI models generalise across populations. When most global datasets are drawn from a narrow subset of the world, the science built on top of them inherits the same limitations. This leads to inequitable care and lost opportunities for discovery. A widespread misunderstanding concerns the relationship between population size and genetic diversity. The two are not equivalent. Africa represents about 17 percent of the global population but holds more than a quarter of humanity’s genetic diversity. Latin America accounts for roughly 8 percent of the world’s population but contains close to 16 percent of global genetic variation. Asia is home to almost half the planet, yet its representation in genomic databases remains low because so few communities have ever been sequenced. Indonesia alone has more than 1,300 ethnic groups. It is one of the world’s great centres of human diversity, but almost entirely missing from global datasets. The consequences are clear. If these populations are absent, our science is not only incomplete but also unreliable. Our predictions become less accurate. Our biological insights become narrow. We describe our work as global, although it captures only a fragment of global variation. Indonesia and Latin America share a particular challenge. Both are regions with extraordinary diversity but limited representation in international genomics. Both have experienced long histories of extractive research, where samples left the country and benefits did not return. Trust has been damaged. Local capacity has often been overlooked. Without investment in local sequencing, bioinformatics and governance, even well-meaning initiatives risk repeating these patterns. This is why solving the diversity gap is not a matter of ethics alone. It is a scientific necessity. Genomic diversity is not a decorative add-on. It is the backbone of robust and equitable science. If we want drug development to work for everyone, if we want AI models that are safe and reliable, and if we want precision medicine that truly deserves its name, we must rethink how we build global datasets. The solution cannot be reduced to collecting more samples. What we need is a coherent system that strengthens trust, protects sovereignty and builds capability in the regions where the data originates. This means developing sequencing and data infrastructures across Southeast Asia and Latin America. It means training local scientists and ensuring that benefits remain with the communities that contribute. It means governance frameworks that protect rights and promote responsible use. It means treating Indonesia and Latin America as equal partners in shaping the next generation of genomic science. The future of genomics will be defined by the choices we make now. The missing pieces of our global datasets are not peripheral. They represent essential chapters of the human story. Without them, our science, our tools and our predictions will remain incomplete. My invitation in London was clear. Let us build a future in which diversity is recognised as scientific infrastructure. Let us ensure that equity is not an aspiration but a practice. Let us move towards a form of precision medicine that reflects the full breadth of the populations it aims to serve. The path is visible. What we need now is the collective will to follow it.