India’s swift digital revolution, fueled by major initiatives like Adhaar, Digital India, virtual reality, augmented reality, and IoT technology, integrated games to create immersive experiences, and the proliferation of smartphones, has brought the nation to the forefront of the digital arena. Undoubtedly, India is undergoing a major digital transformation, which is shaping the country to a great extent. As digital capabilities enhance and connectivity becomes omnipresent, technology is greatly ingrained in nearly every sector to boost the economy. In Digital India, Technology To Transform a Connected Nation, the McKinsey Global Institute reveals digital technologies’ rapid speed and potential value to the Indian economy by 2025 if the government and private sector work together to create new digital ecosystems.
In every way, India is well on its way to becoming a digitally advanced economy in the next few years. Accentuated by the lower price and rising popularity of smartphones and high-speed connectivity, India is already home to millions of growing bases of digital consumers, and its digitisation is faster than that of any other emerging economy. In September 2018, India had 560 million internet subscribers, only second to China, and today, the number has surged to 759 million active internet users. As per the Hindu News, the number is projected to grow to 900 million by 2025. This is the first time that most Indians have become active Internet users, the Internet In India Report 2022 said.
The public and private sectors drive digital consumption growth with the digital revolution. Digital applications like UMANG, Aarogya Setu, DigiLocker, and many more are increasing in most sectors of the Indian economy. Studies have observed the digital progress within the Indian economy. By 2025, key digital sectors such as IT, business process management, digital communication services, and electronics manufacturing may see their GDP double from $355 billion to $435 billion. However, the newly digitised sectors like education, energy, agriculture, financial services, logistics, healthcare, retail, government services, and labour markets will likely create $10 billion to $150 billion of rapid economic value by 2025. It is also revealed that the digital applications in these sectors help raise output, save costs & time, eliminate fraud, and enhance demand and supply to a great extent.
Besides digital applications, high-speed connectivity, and advanced technology integration in the gaming industry, infrastructure can’t be omitted, which has played a huge role in shaping the country’s smart roads, highways, buildings, and bridges. One of the remarkable examples of digital transportation can be spotted in Ujjain, where two “Smart Roads” were recently inaugurated and equipped with IoT sensors, high-tech cameras, radars, and other advanced equipment to garner data on traffic flow. The smart roads or highways depict India already paving its way to a smarter future.
The digital revolution in India has progressed greatly, transforming every sector to a great extent. In the healthcare and life science sectors, digital transformation offers biopharma and health sectors the ability to execute and innovate new products and services. According to Forbes, India is using advanced technology to provide 1.4+ billion people access to healthcare, which has resulted in a higher success rate of medical procedures like surgeries, diagnostics, disease detection, etc.
Over the past few years, the manufacturing sector has also witnessed a colossal digital transformation. Regarding smart manufacturing, Ashish Srivastava, Plant Manager of Continental Automotive India, said, “Smart factories for us are like a step up from traditional automation to a fully connected and flexible manufacturing system.” The company strongly believes in implementing augmented reality (AR) for remote assistance and problem-solving, among many other things. The new era of smart manufacturing is helping manufacturers enhance productivity and quality and achieve mass customisation without much investment. As technology rapidly advances the Indian economy, it can be seen that the country will flourish exponentially in the next few years.
