Report name: The case for expanding digital public infrastructure: How open, scalable technology can serve citizens, preserve sovereignty and save money
Published by: Chatham House, Digital Society Programme (October 2025).
Who wrote this report?
This research paper is authored by Rowan Wilkinson, Alex Krasodomski and Isabella Wilkinson in Chatham House’s Digital Society Programme. It draws on roundtables and interviews held under the Chatham House Rule in 2025, alongside a synthesis of evidence and case material.
The core argument is that digital public infrastructure (DPI) is not just ‘better IT’. It is a strategic approach to building society-scale digital systems that can help governments reduce costly duplication, strengthen resilience, and navigate today’s geopolitics of technological dependence.
Best quote
“DPI is more than a technical solution: it is a new theory of change that reframes the digital state as a platform for innovation and sovereignty.”
Key takeaways
- DPI is both infrastructure and an approach to building it.
Chatham House defines DPI as shared digital systems (often including digital ID, digital payments and data exchange systems) and the principles behind them such as interoperability, reusability/openness, and secure data sharing.
- The problem DPI addresses is the ‘silo + vendor lock-in’ cycle.
The report contrasts DPI with traditional digitalization, where governments commission single, siloed solutions that can’t easily connect, evolve, or be run independently of the original provider driving duplication, waste, and lock-in.
- Sovereignty is a driver, but it has limits.
DPI is framed as a route to counter foreign dependency and vendor lock-in, allowing national values to shape society-scale technology. At the same time, the report is explicit that some dependencies are hard to unwind, especially where capital intensity and incumbency are high (cloud computing is the key example).
- Economic value comes from interoperable, reusable digital infrastructure rather than bespoke systems.
The report point to measurable gains where shared infrastructure reduces transaction costs and administrative friction. Examples include:
Estonia claims its DPI-enabled public services (supported by digital ID) save over 1,400 years of working time and 2% of GDP annually.
Brazil’s Pix lowered merchant costs, with an average fee of 0.22% vs 2.2% for credit cards in Brazil.
India’s Aadhaar reduced the cost of verifying identity from $10-$12 to about $0.20, enabling services at scale in low-income and remote contexts.
Resilience is about reducing single points of failure.
DPI’s modular, interoperable components can limit the systemic impact of individual system failures and reduce reliance on single vendors.
Ukraine’s ‘Diia’ is used as an example of rapid adaptation under crisis, including maintaining citizen access by migrating to distributed cloud servers, while also raising questions about reliance on foreign cloud/cybersecurity providers.
- Rights and safeguards are not optional add-ons.
The report repeatedly warns that DPI can enable intrusive surveillance, social scoring and misuse of private data, especially in authoritarian contexts, and argues that transparency, democratic oversight, and strong legal safeguards are vital.
What’s in this report?
The report is organized around five policy lenses that frame DPI’s strategic relevance: sovereignty, economic opportunity, resilience and security, public sector modernization, and global collaboration.
Sovereignty - reducing strategic technological dependence and enabling states to shape digital systems in line with national priorities and values.
Economic opportunity - lowering transaction costs, reducing duplication and enabling innovation through interoperable, reusable digital infrastructure.
Resilience and security - limiting the systemic impact of individual system failures and strengthening adaptability in times of crisis.
Public sector modernization - shifting from siloed, vendor-led procurement toward interoperable digital building blocks that can be updated and built upon.
Global collaboration - fostering cross-border learning, standards alignment and cooperation in the development and governance of digital infrastructure.
The report introduces DPI by contrasting fragmented, service-specific digital systems with interoperable, open components that can be built upon across government. This conceptual distinction underpins the broader argument that DPI is not merely a technological upgrade, but a structural rethinking of how digital systems are designed and governed.
The analysis concludes with a set of implementation-oriented recommendations that translate this strategic case into institutional practice. These emphasize:
Establishing a clear political and institutional mandate for DPI, supported by cross-government coordination and sustained policy commitment.
Building in-house technical capacity within the state to design, govern and maintain interoperable digital systems.
Identifying and prioritizing high-impact use cases through rigorous cost-benefit analysis, focusing on areas where shared digital infrastructure can deliver measurable public value.
Engaging in international DPI collaboration to enable knowledge exchange, standards alignment and participation in emerging global digital public goods ecosystems.
Why should you read this report?
For public sector leaders, this report reframes digital transformation as institutional and infrastructural design, not just procurement. It is most useful if you are wrestling with fragmentation, vendor dependency, or the challenge of building interoperable foundations that can support future services, including AI-enabled applications.
The report also situates DPI within broader debates on digital sovereignty and AI governance, highlighting how control over foundational infrastructure, public datasets and technical capacity shapes a state’s ability to govern emerging technologies. Importantly, it pairs ambition with caution: rights protections, democratic oversight and legal safeguards are treated as core conditions of success, not secondary considerations.
Who is this report for?
This report is especially relevant for government digital transformation leaders, CIO/CTO functions, ministries of finance/public administration, and teams working on data governance, digital ID, payments infrastructure, and resilience planning. It is also useful for development partners funding digital systems and for policymakers engaging with digital sovereignty questions.
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