New Cloud lobby seeks 'national asset' status for India's data

The Bharath Digital Infrastructure Association (B-DIA) — set up just a month ago with an initial membership of over 14 homegrown Cloud operators and other digital infrastructure players — is urging the government to classify strategic data as a "national asset", on a par with oil, power, and defence, and to restrict its storage under foreign control.

- SURAJEET DAS GUPTA

The association, which counts VVDN Technologies, E2E Networks, and Seclore among its members, has demanded that all government and public sector undertaking applications be hosted in sovereign Cloud environments. It has communicated its views to the Prime Minister's Office, Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and discussions with the government are ongoing.

Speaking to Business Standard, B-DIA Secretary-General Abhishek Bhatt said the body has asked the government to support Indian Cloud service providers (CSPs) through production-linked incentive (PLI)-like schemes to build national Cloud capacity.