Experts Urge Secure, AI-Driven Digital Ecosystem for India’s Future

The 'COAI DigiCom Summit 2026' saw wide participation from stakeholders across the ecosystem, who engaged in discussions on policy, innovation and collaboration to drive the next phase of India's digital growth.

Addressing the issue of digital trust, Manish Sinha, Member (Finance), Department of Telecommunications (DoT), said the rapid expansion of 5G and digital services also brings greater responsibility for ensuring security and accountability.

He also highlighted the need to tackle spam and digital fraud through stronger regulatory frameworks and coordinated action across stakeholders.

NK Bhola, Wireless Advisor, highlighted India's steady progress towards a digitally empowered future, underpinned by advancements in 4G and 5G, while noting that the country is preparing for a 6G-ready ecosystem.

He emphasised the importance of efficient spectrum management and the growing role of artificial intelligence in areas such as predictive maintenance and dynamic spectrum utilisation.

Sajan Paul, General Manager at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Networking India, underlined how AI is transforming network architecture and operations with increasing focus on edge computing and the emergence of agentic AI to enable more intelligent and efficient telecom systems.

Moreover, a panel discussion on building intelligent and scalable networks brought together leaders from major telecom companies. Participants stressed that future networks will be increasingly AI-led, requiring robust, energy-efficient infrastructure and stronger industry collaboration to support emerging use cases across IoT and real-time applications.

On future connectivity, experts noted that 5G Advanced and the evolution towards 6G will drive demand for higher bandwidth and new use cases, requiring policy support and sustainable monetisation models to ensure continued investments.

Dr. Devesh Tyagi, Chief Executive Officer, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), highlighted that with India surpassing 1 billion internet users, the next phase of digital growth will be driven by Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

He noted that all citizens receive services at par with metro cities, while underlining the role of ISPs, P2P providers and content delivery networks in strengthening the ecosystem.

Speakers also highlighted the importance of strengthening India's digital infrastructure value chain, including expanding fibre networks, investing in submarine cables and building domestic AI compute capacity to support emerging technologies.

The summit concluded with a consensus that India is well-positioned to emerge as a global digital infrastructure hub, backed by scale, talent and policy support, but sustained collaboration between government, industry and global partners will be key to achieving this vision.

- IANS