India on course to become $1-trn digital economy

The world has gone through unprecedented times for last two years. And the fight against the Covid pandemic is still on. Against this backdrop, technology has crept into our lives like never before. India is no exception to this overall trend. In 2022, this trend is likely to strengthen further. The country has seen widespread adoption of remote working solutions last year. A country where a bulk of GDP is contributed from the services sector, this is a significant feat. Owing to the adoption of WFH, various collaboration tools have seen rising usage. With no end to the pandemic in sight, this trend is likely to continue. Further, as enterprises mull migrating to hybrid operating model, these collaboration software solutions (such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet and many more) will see further adoption this year.

Similarly, be it enterprises or individuals, the migration to cloud is very rapid as of now. This is likely to gain further momentum in 2022. According to a report by global consulting firm Gartner, the use of both public and private cloud and the end-user spending on public cloud services in India are forecast to grow by 30 per cent in 2022. This will be the fourth straight year of double-digit growth in this space. The public cloud services in India are projected to grow to $7.3 billion in 2022.

Such cloud migration will lead to further penetration of technology solutions powered through digital technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), IoT (internet of things), ML (machine learning), data analytics, among others. The country has already seen wide usage of smart devices that integrate IoT and AI solutions. With rising automation across enterprises and demand for connected devices, this trend is likely gain momentum. Use of smart wearables, smart speakers, wireless earphones, therefore, are likely to see more demand this year. As the world approached the adoption of futuristic technologies like metaverse this year, India is expected to see rising penetration of augmented reality and virtual reality gadgets in 2022.

The country is all set to see rolling out of 5G this year. According to reports, India will roll out 5G connectivity in select metro and other cities. This is likely to be a game changer for the country. With high internet speed, all technology-powered solutions will see a paradigm shift in their usage. This will also lead to many more use cases with the application of 5G technology.

Apart from these mega trends, the country is expected to witness many small use cases which are relatively new. These sub-trends will come from the applications of these emerging technologies. As India eyes to be a $5 trillion economy with a digital economy worth $1 trillion in next five years, adoption of these new age technologies in 2022 will put the country on a strong footing to achieve the same. In this perspective, all stakeholders - be it the government or big business houses or startups - should work together to make it India's decade.