Buying vegetables from a roadside vendor and paying by scanning a QR code is hardly remarkable in India today. Neither is opening a bank account digitally, retrieving an official document on a phone, or accessing a government service without visiting an office. The significance lies precisely in how ordinary these experiences have become. Across a country of more than 1.4 billion people, digital infrastructure has quietly embedded itself into everyday life.
India’s population, economic disparities and uneven access to formal financial and public services once made universal delivery extraordinarily difficult. Yet these very constraints pushed the country to build digital systems capable of functioning at population scale. Today, the experience accumulated in solving those domestic challenges is travelling beyond India’s borders. Digital Public Infrastructure is no longer merely part of India’s development story; it is increasingly becoming part of its diplomacy.
At its core, DPI can be understood as a set of foundational digital systems upon which governments, businesses and citizens can build and access services. India’s ecosystem includes Aadhaar for digital identity, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for real-time payments and DigiLocker for verified digital documents, alongside platforms spanning healthcare, education, governance and service delivery.
The remarkable feature is not any single platform, but the scale and interoperability at which the ecosystem operates. As of July 2026, India had more than 1.44 billion Aadhaar IDs, 555 million UPI users and over 716 million DigiLocker users. Digital infrastructure that once seemed ambitious in a country of India’s size has become part of the routine functioning of its economy and state.
This changes the way India’s developmental challenges can be perceived. Scale was once a constraint. Today, it is evidence that digital systems can be designed for extraordinary complexity. India’s experience encompasses rural and urban populations, vastly different income levels, numerous languages and differing levels of digital literacy. The result is not a model that can simply be transplanted everywhere, but an experience that offers lessons to countries confronting their own challenges of inclusion and public-service delivery.
India has begun converting this experience into international cooperation. As of July 2026, the Government of India had signed agreements with 24 countries for cooperation on India Stack and DPI. These partnerships extend well beyond digital payments. They cover areas including digital identity, data exchange, document infrastructure and public-service delivery, as well as knowledge exchange, capacity building and technical assistance.
Some of these partnerships are already moving from agreements to implementation. India and Kenya have concluded an implementation framework for DigiLocker, while development of a foundational DigiLocker solution has begun in Cuba. Discussions with countries including Fiji, Guyana, Armenia, Colombia and Seychelles have explored Indian digital solutions in healthcare and governance. Through the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme, India has also begun training foreign officials in DPI.
UPI’s international expansion is perhaps the most visible manifestation of this phenomenon. Its connections with payment ecosystems abroad demonstrate how domestic infrastructure can facilitate tourism, remittances and economic connectivity. But focusing on UPI alone misses the larger development. India is increasingly sharing not simply individual technologies, but knowledge of how digital systems can be designed and operated at scale.
That distinction matters. The diplomatic proposition is not that every country should reproduce India Stack exactly. India’s emerging approach is instead centred on sharing architecture, technical expertise and design principles that partner countries can adapt to their own institutions and requirements.
India’s DPI diplomacy is particularly relevant to countries across the Global South. Many confront challenges India knows intimately: large populations outside traditional banking systems, uneven access to public services, geographical disparities and the cost of building administrative capacity.
India therefore approaches these countries with something more than a theoretical model. It brings the experience of having confronted similar developmental constraints itself. This creates the possibility of a form of technological cooperation built not simply around selling a finished product, but around sharing the lessons of implementation.
Yet the potential extends beyond developing economies. Interoperable payments, secure digital credentials and efficient digital public services are relevant to advanced economies as well. The broader value of India’s experience lies in demonstrating how common digital rails can enable governments and private innovators to build services at scale.
India elevated this idea onto the multilateral stage during its 2023 G20 presidency. The New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration recognised DPI as an accelerator of inclusive and sustainable development, welcomed a voluntary framework for DPI systems and supported India’s proposal for a Global Digital Public Infrastructure Repository. What had emerged from India’s domestic transformation was becoming part of an international conversation about development.
Countries traditionally build influence through trade, development assistance, infrastructure investment, defence partnerships and cultural diplomacy. DPI offers India another possibility: diplomacy through shared digital capability.
There is something distinctive about this form of influence. A physical infrastructure project may connect two places; digital infrastructure can become woven into the everyday relationship between a citizen and the economy or the state. When India helps a partner country develop such capacity, the relationship extends beyond the transfer of technology. It creates networks among governments, regulators, engineers and institutions and opens possibilities for deeper economic and technological cooperation.
India is now backing this ambition institutionally. India Stack Global showcases digital platforms and technical resources for partner countries, while a government-led Social Impact Fund has been approved to support DPI pilots, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
India’s DPI story began as an attempt to solve problems at home. Its population, diversity and developmental inequalities demanded systems capable of operating at a scale few countries had attempted. What was once seen primarily as a challenge has, unexpectedly, become a source of expertise.
As India Stack travels abroad, India is exporting more than technology. It is sharing the experience of governing digitally at scale—and in doing so, transforming a domestic developmental achievement into an increasingly important instrument of Indian diplomacy.
References:
Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India. India Strengthens Global Digital Cooperation through Digital Public Infrastructure Partnerships with 24 Countries, 29 July 2026.
PIB source — 24 countries, Kenya/Cuba, Social Impact Fund and international cooperation
Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India. Digital Public Infrastructure Strengthens Inclusive Governance by Expanding Access to Digital Services, Financial Inclusion and Last-Mile Service Delivery, 29 July 2026.
PIB source — Aadhaar, UPI and DigiLocker figures
Government of India, Press Information Bureau. India’s Digital Public Infrastructure: Setting a Global Benchmark for Population-Scale DPI, 6 March 2026.
PIB backgrounder — India Stack, DPI diplomacy and international adoption
G20. G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, September 2023. See paras. 54–56 on Digital Public Infrastructure, the G20 DPI Framework, Global DPI Repository and One Future Alliance.
Official G20 declaration
Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India. India and Papua New Guinea Sign MoU on Sharing INDIA STACK, 28 July 2023.
PIB source — definition and international sharing of India Stack
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