Minus One Nandan Nilekani | On Building Digital India, and the Next Population-Scale Opportunity
Dec 4, 2025
Nandan Nilekani, an influential Indian entrepreneur known for architecting Aadhaar, shares his insights on leveraging AI for social impact across India. He discusses the intricacies involved in Aadhaar's creation for 1.4 billion people and emphasizes the importance of curiosity and expert vetting for impactful projects. Nandan envisions a million startups in India by 2035 and highlights the potential of AI in areas like agriculture and education. He advocates for a digital energy grid and open networks to facilitate commerce, driving innovation and ease of doing business.
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AI Embedded In Public Infrastructure
- Digital public infrastructure and AI can be mutually reinforcing: DPI can expose large-scale auths while AI provides liveness and fraud detection.
- Nilekani highlights AI already embedded in Aadhaar authentication workflows.
A Million Startups Is Plausible
- India’s startup count rose from ~10,000 to 150,000 in a decade and can scale to a million by 2035.
- Virtuous cycles of exits, founders becoming investors, and capital inflows drive rapid entrepreneurial growth.
Reduce Friction To Scale Startups
- Improve ease of doing business and reduce everyday friction with tax and regulatory processes to multiply startup impact.
- Focus government effort on pragmatic administrative friction that blocks scaling companies.