India is expected to almost double its internet user base in the next two years with the BharatNet project connecting more homes across rural India, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday.
He said India, not China, is the world's largest connected nation on the internet in the world as China has more intranet connectivity and they have walled off their internet.
"India is going to be one of the largest connected nations in the world. I already think India is the largest connected country in the world because China is not connected because it has an intranet, walled off island that pretends to be the internet.
"Even if you believe for a minute that they are on the internet, we are going to be one of the largest nations in the world," Chandrasekhar said at an Assocham conference.
He added that the country has around 800 million people on the internet at present.
"As the rural broadband internet connectivity programme of the BharatNet starts kicking in and lighting up homes in the villages, we will have 1.5 billion Indians being connected to the internet over the next two years," Chandrasekhar said.
He said internet connectivity is going to drive the artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem in the country and will get preference globally as it will be developed with ethics under the guidance of data privacy rules.
