---
id: "concept-digital-public-infrastructure"
type: "concept"
source_timestamps: ["§ Break Outs", "§ Implications for businesses."]
tags: ["infrastructure", "payments", "emerging-markets"]
related: ["concept-break-outs", "entity-upi", "entity-promptpay", "action-build-lightweight-apps", "prereq-digital-public-infrastructure"]
definition: "Interoperable, open-standard systems for payments, identity, and data exchange that act as foundational economic backbones, particularly driving growth in emerging markets."
sources: ["futures"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-futures"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-foci-75-fragmenting-digital-economy"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/06/what-a-fragmenting-digital-economy-means-for-global-competition"
sourceTitle: "What a Fragmenting Digital Economy Means for Global Competition"
---
# Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)

**Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)** refers to interoperable, open-standard digital systems that serve as the backbone for essential societal functions — **payments, identity authentication, and data exchange**.

In [[concept-break-outs]] economies, DPI such as India's [[entity-upi]] or Thailand's [[entity-promptpay]] creates a massive **flywheel effect**: it drives demand growth and lets companies *piggyback* on existing stacks rather than building proprietary systems from scratch. This is the mechanism behind the recommended [[action-build-lightweight-apps]] strategy.

Familiarity with how open-API, state-backed payment rails accelerate private app development is a stated [[prereq-digital-public-infrastructure]].

Enrichment: World Bank / UNDP work on DPI and "India Stack" (Aadhaar + UPI), plus Brazil's Pix, situate this as a broad emerging-economy pattern.