84 million digital health accounts created under the Ayushman Bharat Digital mission in January 2026, with 82.69 crore health records connected. India is experimenting at continental scale with the world’s largest digital health system, combining universal digital identity and predictive AI for 1.4 billion inhabitants. This transformation could redefine access to care in emerging countries, despite persistent challenges of digital divide and data protection.
A Digital Ecosystem Accelerating
India launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) in 2021 to strengthen the digital health ecosystem by developing and integrating health data files and registries. The Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) is a unique 14-digit digital health identifier that allows individuals to create and manage longitudinal health records across multiple care providers.
The figures reveal massive adoption. As of February 6, 2025, a total of 73,98,09,607 ABHAs have been created, 3,63,520 health establishments have registered on HFR, 5,64,851 health professionals have registered on HPR, 1,59,020 health establishments are using ABDM-compatible software, and 49,06,02,540 (~49.06 Cr) health records have been linked to ABHA. This infrastructure covers all 36 States/Territories of the Union spanning 786 districts across the country, meaning the entire country is covered, including rural areas.
The ecosystem is enriched with practical features. The most visible benefit of the ABHA ID in 2026 is the “Scan & Share” functionality, which allows patients to instantly share their medical records during consultations. Initiatives such as the “scan and pay” facility at GIMS Greater Noida, which integrates ABHA with digital payments and medical records, illustrate ABDM’s capacity to unify clinical and financial workflows.
AI Transforms Preventive Medicine at Scale
India’s telemedicine platform, eSanjeevani, has enabled 282 million telemedicine consultations between April 2023 and November 2025. Among these, approximately 12 million consultations were directly assisted by AI-enabled diagnostic recommendations. The system uses AI-powered clinical decision support systems (CDSS), which analyze patient symptoms and medical records to help doctors establish correct diagnoses.
Specialized applications show concrete results. MadhuNetrAI has assisted more than 7,100 patients in 38 health establishments and is the first AI-assisted community screening program for diabetic retinopathy launched in India in December 2025. AI-enabled tools integrated into the National Tuberculosis Elimination Program have resulted in a 27% drop in adverse tuberculosis outcomes, while the mediated disease surveillance system has generated over 4,500 epidemic alerts since April 2022 by scanning national digital information sources for symptom clusters.
Early cancer detection also benefits from these innovations. NITI Aayog’s Cancer Imaging Biobank project is building a massive database of over 20,000 patient profiles filled with radiology and pathology images. With this, researchers can train AI systems to detect cancer earlier and help doctors determine the best treatment.
The SAHI Framework Guides Responsible Expansion
Facing this exponential growth, India is structuring its approach. In March 2026, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare unveiled the Strategy for AI in Healthcare for India (SAHI) — a national framework for the ethical and effective integration of AI into the health ecosystem. SAHI establishes five foundational pillars: governance and evidence-based validation, secure digital infrastructure, workforce preparation, ethical oversight, and equity-centered deployment.
Developed by IIT Kanpur alongside the National Health Authority, the BODH platform serves as a benchmarking tool, enabling rigorous evaluation of AI models across various health data while maintaining privacy. Rather than moving sensitive patient data to a central server, the AI model travels to where the data is stored, learns from it, and returns without ever seeing or extracting personal details, complying with the DPDP Act 2023.
Three institutions — AIIMS Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh, and AIIMS Rishikesh — have been designated Centers of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare, creating an academic network to develop indigenous solutions tailored to Indian needs.
Rural Digital Divide Remains a Major Challenge
Despite this expansion, inequalities persist. India’s health system continues to privilege urban centers, where tertiary hospitals and specialized services are concentrated, while rural regions, which house over 63% of the population, remain chronically underserved. Nearly 80% of specialist positions in rural community health centers are vacant, and fewer than half of primary health centers operate 24/7.
Technology adoption reveals significant disparities. Older adults in rural India had low levels of digital and health literacy. Only 11% of participants had digital literacy, and 3% to 27% had health literacy across different domains. Mobile phone ownership was relatively high at 50%, but smartphone use and Internet access for healthcare were minimal.
These challenges worsen in the poorest regions. In a study conducted in Odisha, one of the country’s poorest regions, 25% of households experienced financing difficulties, and 40% of those facing hospitalization had to resort to loans or sell assets to cover direct costs. Opportunity cost remains prohibitive: rural residents represent approximately 86% of medical visits, many traveling over 100 kilometers to reach care, with 70-80% of medical costs paid out of pocket.
The Geopolitical Opportunity of Digital Leadership
This transformation positions India as a global reference point. By embracing artificial intelligence (AI), digital public infrastructure, and cross-sector collaboration, India is moving from reactive problem-solving to proactive and inclusive innovation. Forbes noted that due to India’s large population, any precedent for data management in the NDHM (now renamed ABDM) would establish a model for other national health programs to study.
Indian experience is already inspiring its neighbors. The summit brought together policymakers, technologists, and public health leaders from across the WHO South-East Asia Region (SEAR), enabling knowledge transfer to Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Timor-Leste.
This digital infrastructure is becoming a strategic asset in the emerging Asian economy. India is methodically building the foundations for preventive medicine at scale, where Western systems still struggle to move beyond the traditional curative model. This continental experiment will reveal whether technology can actually democratize access to quality care, or whether it will merely amplify existing inequalities between digitally connected and digitally excluded populations.