Rethinking Infrastructure for India's Digital Era

In this episode of SparX, Mukesh Bansal speaks with Sharad Sharma, one of the key minds behind Aadhaar and UPI. Sharad shares why he left a successful corporate career to focus on nation building, and how India can avoid becoming a trade colony of China or a tech colony of the US by doubling down on deep tech and research-driven innovation.

They discuss:

- The origins of India Stack and Digital Public Infrastructure.

- How UPI really scaled and the lessons for entrepreneurs.

- Why India must build a strong R&D and product innovation ecosystem.

- The urgent need for new research institutions, mid-career researchers, and long-term thinking.

- How India can carve its own path in AI through health, education, and data-driven use cases.

If you want to understand India’s deep-tech playbook and the roadmap to Viksit Bharat, this is a must-watch conversation.