How India’s Digital Public Infrastructure Is Changing the World

The report “Digital Public Infrastructure: A Global Blueprint” presents a transformative vision for global development in the digital age.

Authored as a comprehensive guide, it argues that Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)—a set of open, interoperable digital building blocks like identity systems, payment rails, and data exchanges—is reshaping how governments deliver services, foster innovation, and achieve sovereignty.

Moving beyond siloed e-government initiatives, DPI is likened to “digital roads,” enabling seamless connections between people, businesses, and states while unlocking economic potential across sectors such as finance, health, and agriculture.

This blueprint, drawn from real-world successes like India’s India Stack and Estonia’s X-Road, emphasizes open-source principles to allow nations, particularly in the Global South, to leapfrog outdated systems and avoid dependency on proprietary tech giants.

By open-sourcing “best practices,” DPI democratizes development, turning high-cost innovations into reusable Digital Public Goods (DPGs) that poorer countries can adapt. As of 2025, with DPI handling half the world’s digital transactions and enrolling billions in identities, the report positions it as the “national plumbing for the Internet Age.”

Part 1: The New Development Paradigm

The report opens by contrasting traditional government IT—plagued by silos, high costs, and vendor lock-in—with the DPI approach. Historical e-government efforts often resulted in duplicated systems, leading to inefficiencies exposed during crises like COVID-19.

In the U.S., fragmented legacy systems caused fraud and delays in relief distribution, while South Africa’s disjointed data management eroded trust and decision-making. DPI counters this with layered, shared infrastructure that prioritizes interoperability, scalability, and open standards, as illustrated in Table 1 of the report, which highlights attributes like reduced costs through reuse and enabled innovation via public-private collaboration.

At DPI’s core is the “foundational trinity”: digital identity for authentication, payments for transactions, and data exchange for secure sharing, often with user consent. These elements create exponential value when integrated—for instance, enabling a citizen to verify identity, receive government payments, and share financial history for loans, thus promoting financial inclusion and entrepreneurship.

Building on this, secondary layers like verifiable credentials, registries, and digital signatures further empower ecosystems. Critically, DPI is “market-making,” not market-crowding; account-agnostic payments foster fintech competition, while identity layers lower entry barriers for services.

The report spotlights India Stack as the “billion-person stack” proving DPI at scale. Launched with Aadhaar’s biometric IDs enrolling 1.2 billion by 2019, it layered on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), processing $3.4 trillion in 250 billion transactions by 2025—surpassing Visa daily. The Account Aggregator framework adds consent-based data sharing via DEPA.

Ecosystem tools like DigiLocker for document storage and OCEN for credit protocols exemplify how open APIs spur private innovation, from e-signatures to small-dollar lending ($2–$12K). India Stack’s success, reaching 51% of populations with digital aid during pandemics versus 16% without, underscores DPI’s role in state resilience. It serves as the archetype for open-source DPI, inspiring global adoption and framing a “third way” beyond Big Tech dominance or colonial dependencies.

Part 2: The Global Sharing Model: From Practice to Public Good

Transitioning to replication, Part 2 explores how DPI evolves into DPGs—curated open-source software, data, AI, and standards adhering to privacy laws and SDGs. The Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) curates these via a 9-point standard and registry, de-risking adoption for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Governments like Brazil, Estonia, Ukraine, and the U.S. now mandate open-sourcing state software, exporting governance as soft power and scalable aid.

MOSIP exemplifies identity replication: a modular, open-source platform inspired by Aadhaar, ensuring sovereignty through vendor-neutrality and API-first design. Adopted by 11 countries, it has registered 90 million, including 71 million in the Philippines, 150,000 in Morocco, and refugees in Ethiopia’s Fayda system for banking access. In Zambia, it enables rapid drought relief transfers. MOSIP’s marketplace builds local tech ecosystems, turning aid into sustainable markets.

For data exchange, Estonia’s X-Road—a distributed “secure bridge” avoiding central repositories—exports interoperability while respecting departmental data ownership. Managed by NIIS with GitHub code, SDKs, and training, it pilots in South Africa’s MzansiXchange to unify silos without political friction, enforcing “once-only” data principles.

GovStack advances this by sharing standards, not products: open “Building Blocks Specifications” for interoperable components, plus tools like GovTest and a marketplace of compliant software. In Kenya, Rwanda, and Egypt, it streamlines procurement, embedding interoperability in tenders to prevent lock-in. This “meta-layer” sharing—akin to internet protocols—empowers LMICs to demand global standards, shifting power from vendors to governments.

Part 3: The Next Horizon: DPI as the Foundation for AI

Part 3 positions DPI as AI’s indispensable backbone, providing data infrastructure and governance for ethical, sovereign deployment. AI requires high-quality, local data for relevance; DPI’s registries and exchanges deliver this, while identity and consent mechanisms enforce accountability. Without DPI, nations risk AI dependency on foreign LLMs, exacerbating “digital colonialism.” South Africa’s G20 focus on both underscores their synergy.

The “UPI for AI” envisions a unified interface for fragmented models, enabling seamless switching via open protocols. Beckn Protocol realizes this as decentralized networks for services, including AI. Beckn Onix, a 2025 Google Cloud-backed open-source accelerator, offers “DPI-as-a-Service” for rapid pilots, with pre-packaged components on cloud rails. Table 2 outlines these: UPI for AI as conceptual unification, Beckn as protocol, Onix as tool, and DaaS as deployment model.

Yet, this hybrid raises tensions: cloud dependency could recreate vulnerabilities, highlighting the need for safeguards. DPI thus evolves AI from elite tool to inclusive public good, fostering innovations in LMICs like Nigeria or Brazil by lowering integration barriers.

Part 4: Safeguarding the Future: Sovereignty, Privacy, and Inclusion

Addressing critiques, Part 4 tackles the “sovereignty paradox” and exclusion risks. Digital colonialism arises from building on private rails, as in South Africa’s GovChat crisis, where Meta’s WhatsApp threat severed citizen-government links. The EU’s EuroStack counters U.S./Chinese dominance by drawing from India Stack for public-owned infrastructure. DPI mitigates this via open standards and ownership, reversing North-South dynamics: Global South innovations now model Northern sovereignty.

Exclusion manifests in divides: connectivity gaps, biometric failures, surveillance via centralized IDs (e.g., Aadhaar leaks affecting 815 million), and security breaches like Singapore’s Singpass. Federated architectures like X-Road preserve privacy by avoiding “phone home” tracking. The “digital-first, not digital-only” rule mandates analog alternatives to prevent inequality calcification.

Trust-building culminates in the UN’s Universal DPI Safeguards Framework, a multi-stakeholder playbook applying principles like “do no harm” across life cycles. Table 3 details components: principles (privacy by design), risks (exclusion, distrust), stages (design to maintenance), and recommendations (audits, citizen-centricity). Safeguards span legal (privacy laws), design (impact assessments), technical (cybersecurity), and institutional (independent operators).

This framework open-sources governance itself—Phase 3 of sharing—evolving DPI from code to rights-based paradigms. Works Cited reinforce this with 84 references, from UNDP compendiums to G20 declarations.

Conclusion: A Call to Collective Action

“Digital Public Infrastructure: A Global Blueprint” is a rallying cry for a collaborative digital future. By open-sourcing infrastructure, standards, and safeguards, DPI empowers nations to build resilient states, inclusive economies, and ethical AI ecosystems. From India’s trillion-dollar transactions to Estonia’s global bridges and the UN’s trust frameworks, it proves leapfrogging is possible.

Yet success demands vigilance: sovereignty through federation, inclusion via optionality, and trust via safeguards. As DPI matures, it redefines development—not as aid or extraction, but as shared sovereignty. Nations adopting this blueprint will not just digitize; they will democratize power in the 21st century.