India’s G20 Sherpa and former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Friday said the artificial intelligence race will not be won by those who build high cost models, but by those who will democratize technology, use open source and cost competitive models.

He said the government, business, startups and citizens must work together to ensure an inclusive, sustainable and innovation driven digital growth in India.

Advertisement

Kant was speaking at the launch of the third edition of the ‘State of India’s Digital Economy (SIDE) 2025’ report.

The former NITI Aayog CEO said the government must strengthen digital infrastructure, businesses must continue to innovate and individuals must embrace more and more digital skills.

The future of India’s economy is entirely digital, and the SIDE 2025 report helps establish how much progress India has made already, Kant said.

The report presents a new approach to measuring digitalisation. This approach, better suited for developing countries like India, proposes a much wider definition of digitalisation through its Connect-Harness-Innovate-Protect-Sustain (CHIPS) framework, taking into account the breadth and depth of the digital economy.

The report said in AI, India ranks 11th in research and 16th in infrastructure, highlighting the need for greater investment to compete globally.

While inclusion efforts are making progress, with UPI significantly reducing gender and urban-rural disparities, geographical divides in access to other digital services continue to persist.

The ICRIER-Prosus Centre for Internet and Digital Economy (IPCIDE) unveiled the third edition of the ‘State of India’s Digital Economy (SIDE) 2025’ report at its annual conference here.

According to the report, India has the world’s second largest mobile and internet network by number of users. Few countries see data traffic per smartphone as high as in India. India is also the global leader in terms of the volume of digital transactions and export of ICT services.

However, despite rapid mobile broadband adoption and some of the highest mobile data usage rates globally, fixed broadband infrastructure remains underdeveloped, limiting long-term digital resilience.