GFF 2026: Scindia pitches ‘digital trinity’ of connectivity, compute and trust for AI economy

Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday described connectivity, compute and trust as the “new digital trinity” underpinning the future of fintech and the AI economy, saying the mobile phone has effectively become the new bank branch and the telecom network the new financial highway.

Speaking at the keynote address of the Global Fintech Fest 2026, Scindia said fintech’s evolution was inseparable from India’s connectivity revolution, with telecom infrastructure forming the foundation for financial technology to scale.

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“The mobile phone has become the new bank branch, the telecom network has become the new financial highway, and data has become the fuel for the AI economy,” Scindia said.

“Take these three elements together, it gives you the new digital trinity — the trinity of connectivity, the trinity of compute, and the trinity of trust,” he said, adding that the three must develop together to make technology ubiquitous across India and the world.

Scindia said India’s expansion of digital connectivity over the past decade had also created the infrastructure for greater financial inclusion and economic mobility. Internet access has risen from around 25 crore people a decade ago to more than 100 crore today, while broadband connections have increased from about 6 crore to more than 102 crore, he said.

India now has about 133 crore mobile phones, including nearly 52 crore in rural areas, according to Scindia.

“These are not purely telecom statistics. These statistics tell you a different story. They portray the case of economic mobility,” he said, adding that the mobile number had increasingly become a gateway to credit and investment.

5G, BharatNet form backbone

Scindia said India had rolled out 5G across 99.9% of its districts within 26 months of beginning the deployment in 2022, covering 85% of the population, with more than 500,000 base transceiver stations and capital expenditure of over ₹4.5 lakh crore.

He said the government was also working to achieve 100% telecom saturation through the Digital Bharat Nidhi, including the rollout of nearly 22,000 towers in 34,000 villages that do not currently have telecom connectivity.

Under the amended BharatNet programme, nearly 80,000 gram panchayats have already been connected through optical fibre, while the government aims to connect all 2.52 lakh gram panchayats over the next three to four years, he said.

The objective, Scindia said, was to extend connectivity beyond people to platforms, machines and intelligence, creating the infrastructure through which financial services could reach citizens without requiring a new bank branch in every location.

AI to make finance predictive

Scindia said the next phase of fintech would involve the convergence of telecom networks, financial digital public infrastructure and artificial intelligence.

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He cited the IndiaAI Mission, with an allocation of nearly ₹20,000 crore, 38,000 GPUs, 14 cloud partners, 7,500 datasets and more than 250 AI models, as part of the government's effort to build national AI capabilities.

When compute power converges with telecom networks and financial digital public infrastructure, AI could personalise financial advice, accelerate credit assessments and enable real-time fraud detection, he said.

This would shift finance from being “reactive” to “predictive”, from standardised to personalised and from assisted to increasingly autonomous, Scindia said.

But greater intelligence would also require greater protection of citizens’ financial security, he said, pointing to the risks posed by rapidly moving fraud, compromised digital identities and AI-generated voices.

Scindia flags AI-based fraud prevention

Scindia said the government’s Sanchar Saathi platform allows citizens to report fraud, block stolen devices and act against suspicious connections.

He said the government’s AI model Astra had so far helped disconnect 88 lakh mobile phones considered suspicious for fraudulent activity.

He also highlighted the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FFRI), developed by the telecom ministry, saying the Reserve Bank of India had mandated its use across the banking network to help identify and ring-fence suspicious transactions.

The system connects around 1,500 banks, law-enforcement agencies and other entities, he said, with the aim of moving from detecting fraud after it occurs to anticipating risks before money leaves a customer’s account.

India Stack, UPI take centre stage

Scindia also pointed to UPI as an example of how India’s digital infrastructure has enabled financial technology to scale.

UPI, which began with about 21 banks and 90,000 transactions a month, now connects more than 1,000 banks and processes nearly 240 billion transactions annually, with transaction value of around $4 trillion, he said.

UPI accounts for 84% of domestic transactions, while India accounts for 49% of the world’s digital transactions, according to Scindia.

The payment system has also expanded to nine countries, with India looking to take the technology to another 20 countries, he said.

Scindia said the broader India digital stack — including Aadhaar, Jan Dhan accounts, affordable smartphones and DigiLocker — had reduced the distance between citizens and financial services.

Aadhaar now has more than 144 crore identities, while 60 crore Jan Dhan accounts have been opened and DigiLocker holds around 9 billion documents, he said.

“Digital India democratized access. I now call upon you that intelligent India must democratize intelligence,” Scindia said, arguing that AI and fintech should not remain the preserve of large corporations, banks or big customers.

India wants to lead on 6G

Scindia also outlined India’s ambitions in telecom technology, saying the country had moved from being primarily a market for technology to becoming a maker of technology, designer of standards and builder of platforms.

He said India had developed its own domestic 4G stack, deployed across 100,000 towers, and was now working on 5G and 6G technologies.

Through the Bharat 6G Alliance, India aims to contribute 10% of patents and play a larger role in global 6G standards, he said.

“We were behind the world on 4G, we marched with the world on 5G. But I commit to you, ladies and gentlemen, we will lead the world on 6G,” Scindia said.

The minister said the eventual goal was to build digital infrastructure that was trusted, inclusive and secure, with citizens remaining at the centre even as technology becomes increasingly autonomous and finance becomes programmable.

“Our mission is clear: innovate in India, build in India, scale in India, serve in India, but from India serve the world and serve it securely,” he said.