On 1 July 2015, Digital India was launched with the vision of transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. Eleven years on, that transformation is visible at every level of Indian life, in the village panchayat connected through high-speed broadband, in the farmer receiving direct benefit transfers within seconds, and in the student accessing quality education on a smartphone. Internet connections have grown approx four times than earlier, and the cost of mobile data has fallen from ₹269 per GB to ₹8–10, making digital access among the most affordable in the world.
As Digital India completes eleven years, it stands at a decisive inflection point. Having built the foundational layer of digital infrastructure, financial inclusion and citizen service delivery over its first decade, the programme is now anchoring itself in the frontier domains of Artificial Intelligence and semiconductor manufacturing, the two pillars that will define India's technological future and underpin the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.
IndiaAI Mission: Building India's Indigenous AI Ecosystem
The IndiaAI Mission, approved with an outlay of over ₹10,372 crore, has made significant strides over the past year. At its foundation is the establishment of a shared compute facility with over 45,000 GPUs, creating the computational backbone for AI research and deployment at national scale.
Under the AI Foundation Model pillar, 15 Large Language Models and Small Language Models are being supported across speech, text and vision modalities. The AI Kosh platform now hosts over 12,519 datasets, 307 AI models and 20 toolkits, making AI development resources openly accessible to researchers, startups and institutions across the country. Twenty AI solutions have been deployed across 12 sectors through challenges, hackathons and in-house development.
To ensure AI capability reaches beyond metropolitan centres, 27 Data and AI Labs have been established across Tier II and Tier III cities, 684 Fellowships awarded to students, and 8.4 million learners supported through the YUVA AI course. Eighteen Centres of Excellence have been set up across the country, and 20 Indian AI startups have been supported for capacity building. AI Governance Guidelines, released in November 2025, affirm India's commitment to developing AI that is safe, inclusive and trustworthy.
The India AI Impact Summit 2026, held in February, marked a defining moment in India's global AI leadership. The summit brought together delegations from over 100 countries and 20 international organisations, attracting nearly 15 lakh participants through physical and virtual engagement. The India AI Impact Summit Declaration was adopted by 92 countries and organisations, reflecting broad international support for India's vision of trustworthy and development-oriented AI. The event catalysed over USD 200 billion in AI-related investment commitments and reinforced India's position as a trusted global convenor for AI research, infrastructure and digital public goods.
Semiconductor Mission: From Policy to Production
India's semiconductor ecosystem has moved decisively from policy to production. Under the India Semiconductor Mission, 12 semiconductor manufacturing projects have been approved with an investment pipeline of approximately ₹1.64 lakh crore, comprising one semiconductor fabrication unit, two compound semiconductor fabrication units and nine packaging units. India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, announced in the Union Budget 2026-27, signals a deepening of the national commitment to chip manufacturing, with focus on semiconductor equipment, materials, indigenous intellectual property and resilient supply chains.
On the design side, 24 projects are being supported under the Design Linked Incentive Scheme, 105 companies have been assisted with advanced chip design tools, and 23 design tapeouts have been completed at various foundries, including at advanced nodes, reflecting India's growing depth in semiconductor design.
India's emergence as a global semiconductor destination received strong international validation at SEMICON India 2025, which brought together over 350 exhibiting companies from 48 countries and regions. The signing of 13 MoUs and the participation of leading global semiconductor CEOs highlighted growing international confidence in India's policy framework and long-term semiconductor vision.
Electronics Manufacturing: Achieving Global Scale
The convergence of AI and semiconductor investments is already reshaping India's electronics manufacturing landscape. The sector has grown into an industry valued at ₹13 lakh crore, and electronics has emerged as India's third-largest export category, a milestone that was unimaginable just a decade ago. India is today the world's second-largest mobile phone manufacturer. The advanced manufacturing ecosystem now taking shape, spanning AI-enabled data centre components, 5G equipment and high-end networking gear, is integrating India into global technology supply chains while creating large-scale employment domestically.
UPI Completes a Decade: India's Global Payments Leadership
In April 2026, UPI completed ten years of transforming India's financial landscape. In FY 2025-26, the platform recorded 24,162 crore transactions. UPI now powers 81% of India's digital payments and accounts for nearly 49% of all global real-time digital transactions, cementing India's position as the undisputed global leader in real-time payments. UPI is operational in multiple countries, and India's Digital Public Infrastructure has been formally engaged by 23 nations through cooperation agreements.
Expanding Digital Infrastructure
India's digital backbone has continued to strengthen over the past year. Broadband subscribers have reached 106.58 crore as of March 2026. BharatNet has connected 2.18 lakh Gram Panchayats with high-speed broadband, taking digital access to the last mile of rural India. India's 5G network now covers 99.9% of districts, with 4.74 lakh towers established. In February 2026, the National Data Centre for the North East Region was launched at Guwahati, strengthening digital infrastructure and data sovereignty for the region.
Strengthening the Digital Governance Framework
The past year has seen decisive advances in India's digital governance architecture. Draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, released in January 2025, are establishing a robust framework for consent-based data governance, including mechanisms for data breach reporting and the creation of a Data Protection Board. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, which received Presidential assent in August 2025, came into force on 1 May 2026, and the Online Gaming Authority of India was constituted in April 2026, providing a structured and balanced regulatory framework for one of India's most rapidly growing digital sectors.
Innovation and Startup Ecosystem
India's innovation ecosystem has recorded its strongest year yet. Over 55,200 entities were certified by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in FY 2025-26 alone, the highest single-year addition since the programme's inception. Direct employment generated by recognised startups has reached 23.36 lakh, reflecting a 36.1% year-on-year surge in job creation. Nearly 48% of all recognised startups feature at least one woman director or partner, underscoring the inclusive character of India's innovation growth.
As Digital India completes eleven years, the programme is operating at the intersection of scale and frontier, continuing to deliver services to hundreds of millions of citizens while building the AI infrastructure, semiconductor capacity and advanced electronics ecosystem of tomorrow. With India's Global Innovation Index ranking having improved from 81 in 2015 to 38 in 2025, and with 2,23,000 recognised startups driving innovation-led growth, Digital India's eleventh anniversary is not merely a milestone to reflect upon; it is the foundation from which India's next decade of global technological leadership will be built.
Dharmendra Tewari/ Nayan Solanki/ Vivek Vishwash/ Kanishk Sharma
