India’s MEA and MeitY are set to roll out population-scale digital rails, including UPI and DigiLocker, to 25 partner nations, offering a more inclusive digital infrastructure for the Global South. A senior official of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) confirmed that 25 nations worldwide are currently running pilot programs based on components of India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) stack, with several of those countries considering full roll-out within a year.
India is offering its DPI, which comprises three layers: identification (Aadhaar Card), payments (UPI) and Data Exchange (DigiLocker). Early international pilot programs include Singapore’s National Digital Identity(SingPass), France’s Connect, the Oman National Payments System, and the Australian government’s Digital ID System (AGDIS).
To ensure that technology diplomacy, international legal rules, and foreign policy agreements surrounding it are managed properly, MEA created a specialised wing in 2020 called the New, Emerging, and Strategic Technologies. Execution and technical alignment, on the other hand, are managed through coordination between the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) and Indian diplomatic missions abroad.
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This global expansion is the direct result of India’s 2023 G20 presidency, during which global leaders reached a consensus on the definition of DPI, established a voluntary deployment framework, and created the Global Digital Public Infrastructure Repository. Moreover, the scale and functionality left global leaders in awe of India’s digital infrastructure and was a major driver of India’s DPI’s international success.
