Govt plans to set up centre of excellence for R&D work in DPIs, DPGs

The government plans to set up a centre of excellence to work on research and development in digital public infrastructure (DPI) and digital public goods (DPG), people in the know told ET.

“There are a lot of applications in the DPI space built on top of the protocols developed by both the public and private sectors. What is needed now is participation from universities and colleges, research institutes and academics on various innovations that can be done in the existing models,” an official said.

This centre of excellence will also lead the work and coordination of the implementation of the plan for DPI and DPG proliferation in G20 nations and the Global South, the official said.


For example, some countries have shown interest in setting up an Aadhaar-like identification system for their citizens. With the centre of excellence being the one point of contact, it will be easier to implement these schemes in other countries, the official said.

Digital public infrastructure and digital public goods are developed as underlying architecture protocols by state and central government-run agencies as well as some private institutions. Companies and startups are invited to build applications and services on top of the underlying architecture.

According to estimates, the global market for DPGs is likely to be $100 billion in the next five-six years. As per EY estimates, the total cost per person for developing a DPG in countries with more than 50 million people is as low as 74 US cents (around Rs 61).