India ranks eighth among 125 countries in terms of its digital evolution momentum, according to a draft of the yet-to-be-released Digital Intelligence Index 2024 -- a comprehensive study by the Fletcher School of Business at Tufts University in collaboration with Mastercard.
The 'momentum' of digital evolution is calculated based on the annual rate of change in a country's digital evolution, essentially how quickly its digital transformation is occurring.
This is measured using 184 indicators for each year.
In 2020, the last time this analysis was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, India secured the fourth position due to the unprecedented adoption of digitisation across various sectors such as education, video conferencing, e-commerce, healthcare, banking, and other services, alongside a surge in Unified Payments Interface payments.
A clear trend impacting India is the post-pandemic slowdown in global digital growth.
Between 2016 and 2019, the report notes an average digital compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.3 percent across all countries.
However, between 2020 and 2023, this growth decelerated to just 2.4 percent CAGR.
In India, despite meaningful strides in bridging the mobile Internet gap, digital growth has tapered off as people returned to work or resumed outdoor activities.
Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at the Fletcher School and principal investigator of the research, highlights that the most remarkable change since 2020 has been the US' leap from 35th to third position in 2024, driven by massive advances in artificial intelligence (AI).
Chakravorti emphasises India's progress in bridging its mobile Internet gap, leveraging digital payment systems, and utilising digital public infrastructure (DPI) to narrow the digital inclusion gap, particularly for rural women.
He notes that India's role as a major data reservoir is crucial for powering an AI-driven economy and predicts it will become the world's top data consumer by 2028.
However, he cautions that the quality of data, not just quantity, is essential, and India has considerable room for improvement, especially in training algorithms across multiple languages.
Also, advancements in utilising data for DPI applications could help India establish global leadership.Chakravorti points out that as the US pulls back from regulating AI and other technologies, the regulatory role of countries like India (and the European Union) will be critical in maintaining sensible guardrails for global AI deployment, social media, and digital developments.
The evolution of India's relationship with the Trump administration will also be closely monitored. -- Surajeet Das Gupta/Business Standard