Digital India, launched on 1 July 2015, is approaching eleven years with the government pointing to wider internet access, cheaper mobile data, digital payments and new technology programmes as key outcomes. According to the Press Information Bureau, internet connections have grown about four times, while mobile data costs have fallen from ₹269 per GB to ₹8-10 per GB.
The programme was started with the aim of making India a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The latest government update places its next phase around artificial intelligence, semiconductor manufacturing, digital public infrastructure and affordable connectivity.
IndiaAI Mission and shared compute capacity
The IndiaAI Mission has been approved with an outlay of over ₹10,372 crore. A central part of the mission is a shared compute facility with more than 45,000 GPUs, intended to support AI research and deployment at national scale.
Under the AI Foundation Model pillar, support is being given to 15 Large Language Models and Small Language Models across speech, text and vision. The AI Kosh platform now hosts more than 12,519 datasets, 307 AI models and 20 toolkits, making these resources available to researchers, startups and institutions.
The government said 20 AI solutions have been deployed across 12 sectors through challenges, hackathons and in-house development. To widen access beyond major cities, 27 Data and AI Labs have been set up in Tier II and Tier III cities. The update also cited 684 fellowships for students and support for 8.4 million learners through the YUVA AI course.
Eighteen Centres of Excellence have been established across the country, and 20 Indian AI startups have been supported for capacity building. AI Governance Guidelines, released in November 2025, state the government’s approach to safe, inclusive and trustworthy AI.
The PIB note also referred to the India AI Impact Summit 2026, held in February. It said delegations from over 100 countries and 20 international organisations took part, with nearly 15 lakh participants through physical and virtual engagement. The summit declaration was adopted by 92 countries and organisations, and the event led to over USD 200 billion in AI-related investment commitments, according to the release.
Semiconductor manufacturing projects
Under the India Semiconductor Mission, 12 semiconductor manufacturing projects have been approved with an investment pipeline of about ₹1.64 lakh crore. These include one semiconductor fabrication unit, two compound semiconductor fabrication units and nine packaging units.
India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 was announced in the Union Budget 2026-27. The stated focus areas include semiconductor equipment, materials, indigenous intellectual property and supply chains.
On chip design, 24 projects are being supported under the Design Linked Incentive Scheme. The government said 105 companies have been assisted with advanced chip design tools, and 23 design tapeouts have been completed at various foundries, including advanced nodes.
SEMICON India 2025 brought together more than 350 exhibiting companies from 48 countries and regions. The event also saw 13 memorandums of understanding signed, along with participation from global semiconductor company leaders.
Electronics manufacturing and digital payments
The PIB release said India’s electronics manufacturing sector is now valued at ₹13 lakh crore. Electronics has become the country’s third-largest export category, and India is now the world’s second-largest mobile phone manufacturer.
UPI completed ten years in April 2026. In financial year 2025-26, the platform recorded 24,162 crore transactions. The government said UPI powers 81% of India’s digital payments and accounts for nearly 49% of global real-time digital transactions.
UPI is operational in multiple countries. India’s Digital Public Infrastructure has also been formally engaged by 23 nations through cooperation agreements, according to the PIB update.
Broadband, 5G and governance rules
Broadband subscribers reached 106.58 crore as of March 2026. BharatNet has connected 2.18 lakh Gram Panchayats with high-speed broadband. India’s 5G network now covers 99.9% of districts, with 4.74 lakh towers established.
In February 2026, the National Data Centre for the North East Region was launched at Guwahati. The government said this would strengthen digital infrastructure and data sovereignty for the region.
The digital governance framework has also seen new measures. Draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules were released in January 2025, covering consent-based data governance, data breach reporting and the proposed Data Protection Board. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act received Presidential assent in August 2025, came into force on 1 May 2026, and the Online Gaming Authority of India was constituted in April 2026.
Source: Press Information Bureau, Government of India.