Indian Digital Infra needs investment of up to USD 23 bn by 2025: Report

Digital infrastructure sector needs investment of up to USD 23 billion by 2025, to support the growing demand of digital services and rising online traffic, says a report.

The EY joint report released recently in collaboration with Digital Infrastructure Providers Association (DIPA) shared data projection for investment required in physical digital infrastructure vital for connecting people online by 2025.

“Whether it is health tech, edutech, consumer tech India is leading the way. We will see USD 200 billion e-commerce market, USD 12 billion edutech market,” EY emerging markets TMT leader Prashant Singhal said.

Singhal further added that “India is innovating on digital. For this revolution to happen, we need to have digital infrastructure in place. Tower companies are transforming themselves to digital infrastructure companies. This would require an investment of almost USD 20 billion over the next 3-5 years.”

According to the EY-DIPA joint report, as many as 330 million people will be using 5G and sectors like e-commerce, education, healthcare will grow their presence online. EY estimates investments in the range of USD 17-23 billion will be required in the segment by 2025.

This comprises investment in the range of USD 7 billion to USD 9 billion each for macro tower additions and fibre deployments, USD 2-3 billion for outdoor small cells which will be important for 5G roll out, USD 500-800 million in Wi-Fi and in-building solutions, USD 500-700 million in edge data centers and USD 500 million in data centers.