The Digital Public Infrastructure Map

Tracking national-scale digital infrastructure around the world

2025 State of DPI Report

A Look at Measurement and Prevalence as DPI Transitions from Experiment to Scale.

Download the PDF

Executive Summary

In the past two years, digital public infrastructure (DPI) has emerged as a global priority, shaping the conversation around how governments and societies can benefit from technology and the role of the state in this journey. As more advocacy and funding for DPI increase, and more governments take an interest in this approach, a gap has emerge.

The DPI Map and its associated methodology were established to address this by providing a baseline of prevalence.

2025 State of DPI report cover

This report builds on that effort to do four things:

First, it asserts a growing consensus around the definition of DPI centered around 3 societal functions and 6 common attributes.

Second, it provides a current snapshot of the prevalence of DPI. Looking at DPI’s three components—digital ID, digital payments, and data exchange systems—the IIPP’s DPI Map establishes the first global snapshot of DPI systems across 210 countries. As of 2025, at least 64 countries have DPI-like digital ID systems, 97 countries have DPI-like digital payment systems, and 103 countries have DPI-like data exchange systems.

Third, it analyses what these patterns reveal about DPI’s evolution. Our findings reveal significant unevenness across global regions, with identifiable maturity clusters and income- level patterns shaping implementation. Interoperability and adoption often progress together, suggesting an interdependence between system design and real-world uptake.

Finally, we share reflections on the state of measurement of DPI, and suggest areas for further research. As many existing measurement approaches rely on proxies for understanding DPI attributes, such as technical specifications and the presence of legal frameworks, they often paint a narrow picture of how systems function in practice, and don’t capture the extent to which governance is enforced. There is still much to be done to adequately assess the efficacy of DPI, and the building blocks of measurement being constructed today lay the groundwork for increasingly rigorous assessment in the years ahead.

Read the full 2025 State of DPI report here.

Reference

This report can be referenced as follows:

Fetter, J., Rao, K., and Eaves, D. (2025). 2025 State of Digital Public Infrastructure Report: A Look at Measurement and Prevalence as DPI Transitions from Experiment to Scale. UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. IIPP Policy Report 2025/06. ISBN: 978-1-917384-39-1

Next steps

Help map DPI and join the Community of Practice

We invite all who are interested to join the IIPP Community of Practice on DPI Measurement. Participants can join virtual sessions in this open forum and propose new topics for exploration via a short session proposal form. Topics range from ways to measure interoperability to inclusivity, often featuring presentations from experts in their respective fields. Insights from sessions are published on our blog, helping to share lessons across contexts.

Participants are encouraged to subscribe to the DPI Map newsletter to receive updates on upcoming sessions, new dataset releases, and the latest analysis from the IIPP digital team and our collaborators.