My professor asked our class last week if anyone had paid for something in cash that day. Out of thirty students, maybe four raised their hands. He did not say anything after that. He just nodded and moved on. But I kept thinking about it the whole day.
I come from a family where my father used to keep a small notebook to track every expense. Cash in, cash out, written by hand every evening. That habit made complete sense ten years ago. Today my younger brother does not even know what a cheque looks like. These two realities exist within the same family, barely a decade apart.
So when a report came out on May 29, 2026 saying India is now the 5th most digitalised economy in the world, I was not totally shocked. But I did sit up. The report is from ICRIER and the Prosus Centre for Internet and Digital Economy, and it places India ahead of Germany, France, Japan, and Canada. Not small countries. Not slow economies. Countries that built their infrastructure when India was still figuring out basic things. That is not a small thing to sit with.
What got me more was the AI part. On something called the CHIPS Index, which measures how countries are doing across connectivity, AI adoption, innovation, protection, and sustainability, India ranks 4th globally. Only the US, China, and Singapore are ahead. India also has the second-largest AI talent pool in the world and accounts for roughly 26% of all global AI users. I actually texted that last stat to a friend who keeps saying India is still a developing country. He replied with a question mark. Fair enough.
The Digital India programme connecting over 800 million citizens to internet access is the number behind all these numbers. Think about what 800 million actually means. That is not urban India with fast wifi. That is people in places where internet used to feel like a luxury, now using it to get government services, send money home, look up crop prices, attend school on a phone. That shift happened quietly and most people living in cities did not even register it happening.
India’s GDP grew at 6.8% in 2025, fastest among major economies for the third year running. China was at 4.9%, the US at 2.7%. India is also now the third-largest startup ecosystem on the planet, with over 1.8 lakh DPIIT-recognised startups counted as of June 2025. These are not vanity numbers on a government poster. They show up in the kind of jobs being created and the kind of problems people are trying to solve.
I am not going to pretend everything is perfect. Access is still unequal, a lot of digital infrastructure is fragile, and many of these startups will not survive five years. But the direction is clear and the pace is faster than most people expected, including the people who were optimistic about it.
My father still keeps his notebook. But last month he asked me to show him how to check his bank balance on his phone. He figured it out in about ten minutes.
