A national conference on harnessing artificial intelligence and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to advance the vision of a developed India by 2047 was held in New Delhi on Friday, bringing together senior policymakers, industry leaders and technology experts. The event was organised by the National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) in partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Tripura government, with EY as the knowledge partner.
The conference opened with MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan outlining the need to democratise technology by making it accessible and affordable. He said India’s digital ecosystem works best when government, private sector, academia and civil society collaborate, and stressed that such partnerships will shape the evolution of DPI across sectors. In a special address, Financial Services Secretary M. Nagaraju said India is steadily moving towards becoming a USD 5-trillion economy, noting that the last decade’s digital push, including Jan Dhan and DPI, has driven financial inclusion from 21 percent in 2008 to more than 80 percent today.
UIDAI CEO and NISG CEO Bhuvnesh Kumar said NISG’s hybrid governance model enables faster execution of DPI projects and supports quicker AI adoption across the ecosystem. At the session, Joint Secretary Mahaveer Singhvi from the Ministry of External Affairs said India’s aim is not just to consume AI but to build foundational technology through its IndiaAI Mission, including domestic compute capacity, datasets and innovation centres.
Industry speakers highlighted the scale of India’s digital networks and the growing convergence of AI and DPI. EY leaders Rahul Rishi and Pankaj Khurana said India’s platforms such as Aadhaar, UPI and DigiLocker are now being strengthened through anticipatory, AI-driven services. TCS’ Ranjeet Goswami said DPI earns trust because 1.4 billion Indians rely on it daily, giving India the credibility to share its digital models globally. The conference also saw the release of the NISG–EY report, which pointed to the role of AI-enabled DPI in accelerating governance and economic empowerment.
Panel discussions focused on scaling DPI, trust-building and sectoral applications. EkStep Foundation’s Shankar Maruwada said DPI 2.0, powered by AI, will address the aspirations of 1.5 billion Indians and enable a shift from digital public infrastructure to digital public intelligence. NISG Senior Vice President Srinath Chakravarthy said India’s needs often lie in sector-specific AI models rather than large general-purpose systems. Officials from the DBT Mission noted that nearly 99 percent of applications in Aadhaar now use biometric authentication, with face authentication driving faster and secure DBT delivery.
Case studies from agriculture and digital inclusion showcased how DPI is transforming service delivery. Agriculture Ministry Additional Secretary Pramod Kumar Meherda said the sector is transitioning from fragmented IT systems to an integrated digital ecosystem built around the farmer. BHASHINI CEO Amitabh Nag said interoperable digital identities and curated datasets are enabling personalised advisories and more transparent agricultural services.
NISG, set up in 2002 as a public–private partnership, continues to support governments in reengineering processes and enabling smart, citizen-centric governance across the country.
