Sovereign cloud and digital public infrastructure: Building India’s AI backbone

By- Mohamed Imran, Chief Technology Officer, E2E Networks Limited

India’s digital transformation is built on an ever-expanding infrastructure. For example, the National Informatics Centre has set up state‐of‐the‐art data centers with over 100 PB of storage and 5,000+ servers. This national cloud backbone already powers e‑governance and citizen services. In the AI era, we cannot afford to gamble with this data abroad. To protect our digital economy, India needs both world-class public infrastructure and a sovereign cloud, one that is within the borders and laws of the country.

Why Sovereign Cloud Matters

Put simply, a sovereign cloud means having ownership over where the data is stored, processed, and governed. In practice, this is strategic for AI, because data is the new oil and algorithms are power. Industry analysts note that data sovereignty is a rising concern globally. For example, Gartner projects ...