ITU/UNESCO Report Maps Global Digital Divide, Identifies India's Data Centre Gap
SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure | SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Institutions: Ministry of Communications | Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY)
The ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission’s “The State of Broadband Report 2025: Our Digital World” provides a comprehensive overview of global digital transformation, focusing on the interconnected evolution of connectivity, Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital services, and data governance. The report emphasizes that bridging the digital divide now requires addressing gaps in infrastructure, affordability, digital skills, and policy/regulation.
Major Global Findings and Data:
Connectivity Growth: Global mobile subscriptions reached 9.1 billion in 2025, with 5G connections projected to hit 2.9 billion by the end of the year. Total mobile data traffic is estimated to triple between 2023 and 2029.
Cost of Universal Access: The estimated full cost to achieve universal, meaningful Internet connectivity by 2030 is between USD $2.6 - $2.8 trillion.
The largest cost component is the Digital Infrastructure Gap (USD $1.5 - $1.7 trillion).
AI Policy: The number of countries with national AI strategies has steadily increased, reaching 81 in 2025. Europe leads with 76% coverage, while the Asia & Pacific region is at 45%.
Data Volume: Global data created, captured, copied, and consumed is rapidly increasing, projected to grow to over 394 zettabytes by 2028.
The Digital Infrastructure Gap is one of four core components contributing to the total cost of achieving universal connectivity. It measures the additional investment needed for last-mile infrastructure, data centers, IXPs, backbone networks, and operational expenses (OpEx). The gap is the single largest factor in the total cost, estimated at up to USD $1.7 trillion globally.
India-Specific Details and Implications
While the report primarily focuses on OECD and general regional statistics, India’s immense scale features prominently in the global assessment of capacity gaps:
5G Deployment: 5G subscriptions in India exceeded 270 million by the end of 2024, representing approximately 23% of total mobile subscriptions.
Data Centre Capacity Gap: India is highlighted as a major contributor to the global data center deficit. South Asia, driven primarily by India, has the largest regional data center capacity gap outside of East Asia/China, estimated at 9.4 Gigawatts (GW), with India accounting for 7.1 GW of that gap in 2024. The Data Centre Gap is a specific measure used by international organizations, such as the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission, to quantify the deficit between the available computing power (supply) and the estimated requirements (demand) needed to support a country or region’s current and projected digital services, AI adoption, and data traffic.
Policy & Governance: India is noted as having approved its national AI strategy in 2018. The global trend of data governance, privacy, and sovereignty—themes strongly addressed by India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA)—is now positioned at the top of the policy agenda worldwide.
Policy Relevance
The report provides crucial evidence for India’s digital strategy by quantifying the national effort required for digital empowerment. The massive 7.1 GW data centre gap is a primary constraint on India’s AI and digital services ambition. This figure mandates aggressive public and private investment in computing infrastructure, energy supply, and cooling systems (which consume large amounts of water), highlighting that digital policy must now be tightly linked with energy and water resource management to sustain technological growth and the Viksit Bharat goal.
The ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission’s State of Broadband 2025: Our Digital World and ITU’s Global Connectivity Report 2025 are complementary publications advancing universal meaningful connectivity (UMC), sharing data sources like Facts and Figures 2025 (e.g., 9.1B mobile subs, 2.9B 5G). The former, from the Broadband Commission, provides a broad, forward-looking view on digital transformation—including AI applications, e-government/smart cities, data governance, and infrastructure gaps (USD 2.6-2.8T)—while the latter, from ITU’s Telecommunication Development Sector, delivers a data-centric assessment of UMC across six dimensions (quality, affordability, skills), rooted in the ICT Development Index and policy actions like the Baku Plan. Together, they offer policymakers holistic insights from metrics to trends.
Follow the full report here: The State of Broadband: Our digital world