The past decade has witnessed unprecedented technological advancements. Technologies like Cloud, mobile, Internet, and Internet of Things (IoT) have led to data explosion and analytics. It is estimated by IBM that 90% of the world’s data has been created in the last two years. This comprises largely of unstructured data, generated by transactions, logs, records, social media, audio, visual and video consumption. New data sources are added every day, resulting in valuable data ecosystems for governments and businesses alike. The availability of such large amounts of data has given rise to a Data Economy, which is thriving on analytics and value derived from these varied data sources. This data economy is supported by a converged Digital Infrastructure, which ensures seamless storage and exchange of data through communication systems. Converged infrastructure groups multiple components like servers, data storage devices, networking equipment and software for information infrastructure management, automation and orchestration into a single optimized system. Such converged infrastructure enables organizations to centralize the management of resources, consolidate systems, increase resource-utilization rates and lower costs. It fosters these objectives by implementing pools of hardware, storage and data resources that can be shared by multiple applications and managed in a collective manner using policy-driven processes. Such digital infrastructure lends for seamless data exchange, access and use, thereby enhancing productivity in public and private sectors, boosting innovation and data utilization. Given that 80% of all data has a spatial component, a foundational component of the Data Infrastructure also includes the geospatial data infrastructure. Geospatial data provides the critical ‘where’ or location component to any data or system. Geospatial Data not only serves as an infrastructure, but as a knowledge source and a service provider for the country. For a country like India that seeks to become a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024, leveraging the digital transformation by establishing a digital data infrastructure and geospatial data infrastructure are non-negotiable
