Why the US needs public-private partnerships for digital infrastructure

The Senate’s proposed infrastructure bill includes billions of dollars for broadband, but financial investment alone won’t be sufficient to keep America on top. It’s critical that legislators go one step further, leveraging public-private partnerships that benefit society at large. Some core design principles for thinking about public digital infrastructure and data rights are emerging from India. Their goal is to keep the objective and function of platforms simple and data private. India leverages the authentication platform Aadhar, designed to confirm identity in real-time. Payments is similarly viewed as a generic digital utility, as is the ability for users to consent to how their data are used through platforms that act as “data fiduciaries.” For US lawmakers, this type of public-private partnership is not new — it just requires recasting the physical railroad into a digital one. If the state leaves internet and data governance unregulated, it’s likely to be worse both for it and society, leaving just one winner, Big Tech.

[ Vasant Dhar is a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and director of Graduate Studies for the PhD program at the Center for Data Science at New York University.]