Amazon Web Services (AWS) is seeing accelerated adoption of its cloud platforms by the public sector in India, especially from the government, given its focus on creating digital public infrastructure (DPI) to drive inclusive growth and improve governance. A provider of cloud computing services on a metered, pay-as-you-go basis, in recent times it has implemented projects across healthcare, public procurement and transportation sectors.
“Some of these innovations are ripe for global adoption, particularly for developing nations, given their demonstrated success in enabling financial inclusion, efficient public service delivery, and promoting a digital economy,” said Jeff Kratz, vice-president, Worldwide Public Sector Nonprofit and Industry Sales, AWS.
Amazon has a long-term commitment to India and in May 2023, announced plans to invest $12.7 billion by 2030 into its local cloud infrastructure. It has been working closely with the public sector, focusing on innovation, delivering impact at scale, achieving positive citizen outcomes, and developing cloud and digital skills.
“Governments often operate with diverse legacy environments, and we enable them to migrate or modernise critical workloads to the cloud through programmes like the AWS Migration Acceleration Program. We also support locally-owned cloud software and service providers through our AWS Partner Network and AWS Marketplace for fast solution deployment,” Kratz said.
Giving examples of how India is leveraging AI and GenAI to drive impact in the public sector, Kratz explained: “The first is the National Health Authority (NHA), which runs the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY). Leveraging AWS services, NHA processes over 1.2 million claims monthly with 2.5 million associated documents.
Second is the Government e-Marketplace that runs on AWS. GeM has 2.3 million sellers and 370,000 buyers, helping save over $13.5 billion of taxpayer money while promoting transparency. The third is National Highways Authority of India’s FastTag toll app that automates toll management, contributes $9 billion in government revenue, and drives transparency and efficiency, while enabling data-driven insights to benefit citizens.
“At AWS, we work backwards from customer needs to develop solutions that meet their requirements. We follow key principles like ‘Sovereign by Design,’ ensuring that every service we roll out meets government compliance and security standards. We’ve introduced over 300 security tools and leverage generative AI to enhance data security,” Kratz said.
According to him, governments face several key challenges when adopting cloud technologies. The first is simply how to get started, as much of their workloads still remain on-premises. AWS announced a $50 million investment for proof of concepts to help governments offset their operational costs. “Our sovereign-by-design approach ensures data sovereignty and residency, keeping customer data under their control. We also rigorously test our products to address accuracy, fairness, IP, responsible use, and privacy in AI,” Kratz said.
Another challenge is scaling at a population level. “Applications like FastTag need to reach every citizen with a mobile device. AWS enables such scale while maintaining security and reliability. We also partner closely with policymakers to establish guardrails for responsible AI through strong public-private collaboration,” he said.
In India, AWS works closely with startups driving public sector transformation, supporting them through programmes like AWS Activate for fast innovation and scaling. “We also help commercialise solutions via AWS Marketplace. For example, Periwinkle, which built an AI-based cervical cancer screening solution is now saving the lives of over 200,000 rural women, and Qure.ai, whose AI-based radiology solutions detect diseases with 98-99% accuracy,” Kratz added.
