Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) refers to

digital systems Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. It deals with the relationship between binary inputs and outputs by passing electrical signals through ...

and platforms that enable the delivery of services, facilitate data exchange, and support digital governance across various sectors. DPI includes elements such as digital identity systems,

payment A payment is the tender of something of value, such as money or its equivalent, by one party (such as a person or company) to another in exchange for goods or services provided by them, or to fulfill a legal obligation or philanthropy desir ...

platforms, and data exchange protocols, designed to be scalable, interoperable, and accessible to both government and private sector participants. These infrastructures aim to support the functioning of

public service A public service or service of general (economic) interest is any service intended to address the needs of aggregate members of a community, whether provided directly by a public sector agency, via public financing available to private busin ...

s, governance, and economic processes. It can also be understood as an intermediate layer in the digital ecosystem enabling applications across various public sectors. Examples of DPI include India's Aadhaar system for digital identity, UPI for payments, and the India Stack data exchange framework. Another example of digital public infrastructures is Estonia’s X-Road, which is an open-source government data exchange system. Initiatives such as the German Sovereign Tech Fund provides funding for open digital infrastructure. DPI plays a role in modernizing public services by supporting initiatives in areas like

e-governance Electronic governance or e-governance is the use of information technology to provide government services, information exchange, communication transactions, and integration of different stand-alone systems between government to citizen (G2C), ...

, health records management, and

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

. By ensuring the availability and operation of digital infrastructures, it can affect the efficiency of

delivery and influence trust in digital systems. The implementation of DPI involves addressing issues related to

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

data security Data security or data protection means protecting digital data, such as those in a database, from destructive forces and from the unwanted actions of unauthorized users, such as a cyberattack or a data breach. Technologies Disk encryption ...

, and equitable access to ensure its impact across different segments of the population. It also implies governments taking more responsibility in the maintenance of the underlying technological stack for the digital public sphere to build a shared public infrastructure that prioritizes public values, democracy, and accessibility. Since 2020s, the public discussion about digital public infrastructure is gaining traction, with actors ranging from the

Indian government The Government of India (ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of 36 states and union territor ...

to the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towar ...

(UNDP) or private sector giants like

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology company in Longgang, Shenzhen, Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include teleco ...

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

, and Mastercard endorsing its importance. It’s seen as a solution to numerous contemporary issues, from enhancing digital sovereignty to improving connectivity and interoperability among digital services and products.

History

The concept of treating digital systems as public infrastructure has evolved over decades. Early examples of DPI date back to foundational technologies like the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

and GPS, which were publicly funded and made universally available. However, until recently, such systems were often siloed and not thought of as one cohesive public infrastructure. The term "digital public infrastructure" itself gained prominence in the early 2020s, especially as countries started building integrated digital service platforms. India provided an early model for the concept: its government launched the

Aadhaar Aadhaar (Hindi: आधार, ) is a twelve-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by all residents of India, based on their biometrics and demography, demographic data. The data is collected by the Unique Identification ...

digital ID system in 2010 (now the world’s largest biometric ID database) and opened it up for use in both public and private services. This was followed by open digital payment platforms and data-sharing frameworks, collectively known as the India Stack. These were conceptualized as "government-owned, non-competing" digital utilities on which others could build services. Other nations had parallel developments: Estonia built its X-Road data exchange system in the 2000s, enabling government and private databases to talk to each other securely and laying the groundwork for the later development of Estonia’s

e-government E-government (known for electronic government) involves utilizing technology devices, such as computers and the Internet, for faster means of delivering public services to citizens and other persons in a country or region. E-government offer ...

services. By the 2020s, thinkers and policymakers began explicitly using the infrastructure analogy, framing online services as critical infrastructure that should be broadly accessible, akin to public roads. In 2023, global consensus on a definition of DPI emerged. During India's G20 presidency, world leaders agreed to describe digital public infrastructure as "a set of shared digital systems that are secure and interoperable, built on open standards, to deliver equitable access to public and/or private services at societal scale." That same year, the United Nations also identified DPI as a high-impact initiative for achieving the

Sustainable Development Goals The ''2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development'', adopted by all United Nations (UN) members in 2015, created 17 world Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim of these global goals is "peace and prosperity for people and the planet" – wh ...

, with over 100 countries committing support.

History

References

Further reading