Innovation is the Essence of Digital Bharat

With careful governance, India has the potential to be a digital powerhouse for all Indians, as well as a beacon of innovation for the world

- MOHANBIR SAWHNEY

INDIA IS AT an inflection point for the next phase of its digital revolution, building on the India Stack to the create Digital Bharat—a vision of transformative and inclusive growth. The India Stack created the foundation for digital transformation by providing digital identity, payments, and banking for all Indi- ans. The next phase will leverage this foundation to create combinatorial innovation—where these foundational elements will be used like LEGO blocks to solve India's biggest problems at a massive scale.

In a recent conversation with Nandan Nilekani, he described how AI is becoming the next great fron- tier for India. According to Nandan, India can become the global use-case capital for AI, not only in automating tasks but also in amplifying human potential. Unlike the expensive, compute-heavy models built in the West, India is taking a more frugal approach, optimising for scale and affordability. Companies like Sar- vam AI and Immverse are building Indic large language models (LLMs) that eliminate the tokenisation tax imposed by Western AI models. By training models from the ground up using Indian language data, they are creating more accessible, culturally relevant AI that can serve millions in their native tongues.