India’s inclusive innovation can shape the world’s digital future
Our experience with tech solutions built from the bottom upwards and at scale could guide the use of AI for public purposes
is president of Nasscom.
At a time when the world is grappling with shifting global narratives and macroeconomic challenges, India is experiencing a remarkable transformation. Strong demand, resilient supply chains, relentless innovation, rapid digitization at scale, energetic entrepreneurship and a conducive policy-and-investment climate are shaping a new wave of global optimism over India. From governments across Europe and the US to power centres in the Global South, India’s name resonates in discussions on alliances and strategic partnerships. ‘Incredible India’ is now being seen as ‘Inevitable India.’
Hence, it’s no surprise that Goldman Sachs forecasts that India could become the world’s secondlargest economy by 2075, with its GDP potentially reaching $52.5 trillion, trailing only China’s projected $57 trillion. EY predicts that India’s GDP will grow sixfold to $26 trillion by 2047, the 100th year of Independence, while Martin Wolf of the Financial Times sees India’s purchasing power surpassing that of the US by 30% by 2050.
But the narrative of an ‘Inevitable India’ isn’t just about numbers. It’s about a qualitative and inclusive digital transformation reshaping the nation’s social, economic and cultural fabric. With over 1.2 billion internet users, the third-largest startup ecosystem, a $250 billion technology industry and a 5 million-plus technology workforce, India is transforming itself into a young, vibrant and tech-savvy digital economy where no one is left behind. That is the real highlight of India.
Innovation in the West often caters to the top of the pyramid, focusing on the best before trying to reach out to the rest. India, however, has forged its own path in innovation, starting from the bottom and working its way up. This approach is incredibly challenging, especially given the complexities of a billion-plus population, diverse languages and cultures, and high levels of illiteracy at the grassroots. Many experts dismissed it as a ‘Mission Impossible.’ Yet, India has defied those odds to make it possible.
Over the past decade, India has invested well in creating the world’s largest Digital Public Good (DPI) infrastructure, establishing digital highways that connect the entire country and facilitate the delivery of essential services—from financial transfers to life-saving vaccines. This infrastructure is built on robust design principles, emphasizing interoperability, an open ecosystem and inclusive scalability from the outset.
India’s DPI could serve as a valuable case study for the world on how best to build inclusive technology in this age of artificial intelligence (AI). It demonstrates the importance of prioritizing open ecosystem-driven approaches (making it hard for monopolies to emerge), interoperability and inclusivity right from the start. This has become even more essential as AI continues to advance rapidly, promising to reshape almost everything it impacts, from global supply chains to the dynamics of global leadership and influence.
It is heartening to see these principles being applied to the recently launched India AI Mission. Government support for the development of local compute capacity, data systems, models, use cases and talent underlines the need for India to democratize AI from the very onset.
In sum, the true measure of India’s technological prowess lies not just in its success stories, but in the way we have harnessed technology at scale to address the pressing needs of our vast and diverse population. Most importantly, in the way we have driven innovation to solve last-mile challenges so that nobody is left out of the benefits that a digital economy has to offer.
In India, we do not obsess about technology. We obsess about what it can do and the impact it can create at scale. This is the single biggest lesson the world must learn from India.
As we move beyond hype and towards reality, the next few years will be dedicated to harnessing AI’s capabilities and putting them to work. Our primary focus will be on identifying significant problems that AI can solve, and deploying it at scale. This shift will prioritize return-on-AI-investment, with a growing emphasis on governance and security as such technology becomes pervasive.
This is where India’s DPI learnings can be of value to other countries. Impact creation has long been the focus of India’s digital transformation journey. From using deep-tech, satellite imagery and AI to improve agricultural productivity to deploying tele-medicine solutions to bring healthcare to the remotest corners of the country, India has demonstrated how technology can be a powerful tool for inclusive growth.
As many countries grapple with an economic slowdown and productivity decline, they are expected to adopt AI at scale to boost output. India is prominently positioned to help shape AI roadmaps that focus on inclusion and public impact. Learning from the development and populationscale deployment of technologies like Co-Win for vaccination and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for online bank transfers, India offers a narrative in which digital facilities are offered by a broad ecosystem and not by private monopolies. From climate change to healthcare for all, this approach can tackle some of the world’s steepest challenges.
As I look at the future, I see an India that is not only a tech superpower, but also a beacon of hope for technology resilience, innovation and determination. In other words, an India that is inevitable and unstoppable.