India’s implementation of projects as Aadhaar, Digital India, and BharatNet exemplify its digital prowess. The unique identification project, Aadhaar, is one of the largest globally, with 1.38 billion enrolments. Nonetheless, we must pause and ask ourselves -Where does India stand on AI? Have significant strides been made? The answer to all these questions is – Yes, but there exists a pressing need for the government to invest in AI at levels comparable to the private sector. The government's vision for Digital Public Infrastructure aims to create a robust, inclusive, and secure digital ecosystem. This is indeed commendable, considering our story provides a unique case of an indigenous, open-sourced, public-private-led and impactful digitalisation story with limited resources. The fact that India’s DPI is conceived domestically as a DPG combined with the mission to make it exportable to other countries needs to be given the necessary attention across the world.
To this effect, government data shows Digital India has helped to increase the country’s internet subscriber base multi-fold -- from around 250 million subscribers in 2014 to 950 million subscribers in 2024. BharatNet has connected around 200,000 villages to broadband. Coupled with these initiatives, the country has also taken steps to harness its human capital by upskilling and re-skilling its workforce to be future ready.
Initiatives such as the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA) are taking digital literacy to rural India, while others such as the Skill India Mission and FutureSkills PRIME are making youth employable and training them in new technologies such as AI, Blockchain, IoT and Cybersecurity.
Here we must also recognize the India AI Mission which aims to establish a comprehensive AI ecosystem through public-private partnerships. The mission could help in democratizing computing access, improving data quality, developing indigenous AI capabilities, and fostering industry collaboration while ensuring ethical and socially impactful AI projects being undertaken aligns with the government's broader vision of leveraging AI for sustainable growth and development, positioning India as a global leader in AI innovation.
These efforts have earned the country a place among the top five in the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI’s Global AI Vibrancy Tool, alongside the U.S., the UK and China.
As we move forward, the importance of continuous learning and making the workforce future-ready would also be a critical component of the digital transformation journey. With the rapid diffusion of technology, 35 per cent of skillsets are projected to become redundant or transform between now and 2030, according to World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025.
Collaboration and strategic leveraging of PPPs have played an important role in advancing the country’s digital economy. The open innovation model exemplifies and bakes in this collaborative approach, bringing the best from diverse stakeholders to solve complex problems. India's UPI platform, with over a billion and a half transactions, is testimony to how open innovation reduces costs, speeds up problem-solving, and promotes inclusivity for a diverse audience.
