Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in a meeting with India's Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw emphasised the importance of standards and platforms in driving constant innovation. He praised India for laying a strong digital infrastructure that has provided room for innovation and applications.

Gates also lauded India's efforts in providing digital identity, which has enabled the country to offer services like finance. The Gates Foundation is aiming for digital inclusion, and Gates acknowledged that India has been a leader in providing access to digital banking, with a focus on women.

Gates highlighted that prior to digital infrastructure, achieving the number of bank accounts that India has today would have taken 50 years. He also noted that digital payments infrastructure allows the Gates Foundation to make payments to workers in the field, enabling the adoption of innovation across sectors. According to Gates, no country has built a more comprehensive digital infrastructure than India, and it can be an example for other countries.

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Vaishnaw, in turn, said that India has presented a unique framework for the digital economy, with solutions that can be scaled across the population of a country. He cited the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), launched in 2016, as an example of India's success. Today, on an annual basis, UPI facilitates transactions worth $1.5 trillion.

As of January 2023, UPI has 385 banks onboarded and has had over eight billion transactions.

Recently, UPI also partnered with its equivalent network in Singapore called PayNow, developed by the Association of Banks. This partnership will allow residents of both countries to instantly transfer money to each other via UPI and PayNow.

Last month, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) asked the UPI ecosystem to allow users from some countries with non-resident account types like non-resident external (NRE) and non-resident ordinary (NRO) accounts with international mobile numbers to transact through UPI.

Gates praised India's efforts in the digital economy and expressed his support for India's G20 presidency, which aims to expose people to the benefits of digital infrastructure. He also expressed his desire to see other developing countries adopt similar digital systems.

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The minister also highlighted the country's progress in digital infrastructure during the meeting with Bill Gates. Vaishnaw said that India has developed a complete 4G and 5G digital stack, which are open-source solutions. He expressed hope to share India's digital infrastructure with the world, showcasing the country's digital leadership.

In October last year, telecom providers Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel announced the deployment of their 5G services in the country, significantly enhancing mobile internet speeds in the country.

According to Ookla, the global leader in network intelligence and connectivity insights, the median download speed increased from 13.87 Mbps in September to 29.85 Mbps in January 2023. As a result, India's position on the Speedtest Global Index improved by 49 places from 118th in September 2022 to 69th in January 2023.

Currently, 5G services are available in a little under 300 cities in the country.

Addressing a post-budget webinar coordinated by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Akash Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd said on Tuesday that Jio has deployed "more than 40,000 sites and nearly 2,50,000 cells of 5G network in 700 Mhz as well as in the 3500Mhz band. We are on the path to achieving the declared goal to increase the Jio 5G footprint month after month to other cities, towns and talukas of various states/UTs".

Bill Gates also praised India's digital network during the meeting, stating that a high percentage of people in India are using smartphones. He added that connectivity is the cheapest in the world and is reliable, enabling India to be the cheapest 5G country due to competitive pressures. Gates expressed his desire to take India's model to other countries to see if it can be replicated elsewhere.

Gates acknowledged the telecom swings in India, stating that there were some wild competitive swings with clear winners and losers. He noted that the government did not pick a particular company, and in the end, users were the beneficiaries. However, Gates also mentioned that the justice system in India can act as a barrier to investment. He suggested that a digital justice system with a quick resolution, and borrowing practices from some other countries, could help address this issue.

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First Published:Mar 1, 2023 4:24 PM IST