GCRI · Digital Public Infrastructure
Field overview
Digital public infrastructure is an emerging field that studies society-wide digital systems, such as identity, payments and data exchange, and the governance that lets many services build on them safely. It draws on computer science, standards engineering, public administration, law, economics and development studies. It matters because these systems increasingly decide who can reach public services, markets and rights.
- STEM methods
- 6
- Canonical methods this field applies
- Topics
- 8
- Subject pages in the field
- Counterparts
- 5
- Platforms in shared fields across the network
- Report series
- 2
- Reports series it contributes to
Infrastructure, not applications.
DPI is usually described through three properties. Each is a design choice that affects risk.
Society-wide foundations
Identity, payments and data exchange that many services reuse, rather than each building its own.
Open interfaces
Standards and application programming interfaces that let different providers connect and compete.
Public accountability
Rules on rights, oversight and redress that keep the infrastructure accountable to the people it serves.
Field overview.
The screen a team would use to follow this subject: its measures, states and decisions. Names are examples and values are illustrative.
Access, efficiency and power.
Well-designed DPI can reduce the cost of delivering services, cut leakage in transfers, help small businesses join digital markets and let people prove their identity and eligibility without repeated paperwork. It can also shift power: whoever controls identity, payment rails or data exchange shapes who participates in economic and civic life.
Poorly designed DPI can exclude people who cannot enrol or authenticate, concentrate personal data in ways that enable surveillance, create single points of failure across government and lock states into one vendor. The field asks how to capture the benefits while managing these risks.
The core questions of the field.
- 01
Foundations
How identity and payment systems are designed and governed. See identity and authentication and digital payments and services.
- 02
Exchange and rights
How data move between institutions with consent and accountability. See interoperability and APIs and data spaces and rights.
- 03
Inclusion
Who is reached and who is left out. See digital inclusion and digital public value.
- 04
Continuity
How systems stay available and replaceable. See digital service resilience and public cloud and concentration.
Where the field meets other risks.
DPI depends on the security work of Cybersecurity and Digital Resilience and the computing studied at Data and Compute. Its governance is convened at AI and Digital Governance at The Global Risks Forum (GRF); payment system and fraud risks are studied at Payments and Market Infrastructure and Financial Crime and Fraud Risk at The Global Risks Alliance (GRA). See dependencies and consequences.
Pages in Field overview.
Questions and answers.
Is DPI the same as e-government?
Which methods does the field rely on?
Does the field cover private platforms?
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