The ICRIER-PROSUS Center for Internet and Digital Economy (IPCIDE) had its annual conference on 1 June 2026 in New Delhi, India. The event was anchored around the launch of the State of India’s Digital Economy 2026 report. The report introduces the CIDE Index, which compares over 70 countries to assess achievements in digitalisation, including artificial intelligence. It uses four sub-pillars (Connect, Harness, Innovate, Protect and Sustain, or CHIPS) and uses granular data to arrive at the ranking.
LIRNEasia CEO Helani Galpaya participated in the opening panel and discussed the report’s findings. Her input focused on the implications of the report and its findings beyond India. She commented that while the report shows India’s achievements, many of the strategies India is adopting (such as focusing on the upstream parts of the AI stack – i.e., on chips and compute – as well as more downstream applications) may not be realistic options for less-resourced countries in Asia. In choosing where to focus, she suggested small, context-specific models and downstream applications might give the highest utility for many countries. She proposed that the provision of ‘public goods’ (i.e., non-rivalrous, non-excludable) could help AI innovators in emerging economies reduce transaction costs and create trust among consumers. These include the development of open language resources, providing low-cost model benchmarking and model assurance services, and ensuring a public data repository, among other things.
Separately, LIRNEasia is currently in the process of using the CHIPS framework to diagnose Sri Lanka’s digitalization initiatives.
