Kant: Global future will be driven by nation’s DPI

MUMBAI: India’s G-20 sherpa Amitabh Kant on Thursday said the global future will not be driven by big technology firms but by the digital public infrastructure platforms developed locally.

Speaking at the ‘We Made in India’ event here, Kant said India will transfer its digital public infrastructure (DPI) to the rest of the world, and already there are many examples of countries warming up to the same.

The DPI consists of the digital identity through Aadhaar, real time payment through the UPI platform and other services like account aggregator, and was showcased to the world during India’s presidency of G-20 last year. Kant said during the G-20, the world accepted the definition and framework of the DPI, given the strides that India has made through its strategies.

“During G-20, the world accepted the definition of digital public infra, the world accepted the framework of DPI and to our belief, the future will not be driven by big tech, it will be driven by DPI,” he said.

Kant said India’s DPI will transfer to the world, and the same will present a lot of opportunities for the country’s entrepreneurs which need to be leveraged on.

Meanwhile, the former bureaucrat urged insurance companies and pension funds to make investments in the country’s ‘startup movement’, pointing out that the Silicon Valley ecosystem, which is home to the big tech companies, has been built on the bets taken by such patient investors.

Kant said at present, over threefourths of the funding for domestic startups is coming from international sources while only a fourth comes from domestic sources, including the high net worth individuals.