谷歌已經在印度運營多年，早在2004年就在班加羅爾開設了第一家位于美國本土之外的研發中心。但現如今，這家科技巨頭決意在該國大舉擴張，其時機可謂恰到好處。對工商界頗為友好的印度總理納倫德拉·莫迪，已經將數字革命作為施政核心。一些印度企業集團一直在響應他的號召。莫迪在2014年競選時承諾讓所有印度人上網。然后，在2016年，他廢除了印度當時流通的大部分紙幣，從而有效地促使數百萬人使用數字支付系統。政府還將醫療保險等公共服務放到了網上，并于2016年在全國范圍內推行一項要求企業提交數字記錄的銷售稅。新改版的國民身份證現在能夠收集每個公民的生物特征數據。

GOOGLE HAS BEEN OPERATING in India for years, having opened its first non-U.S. R&D center in Bangalore in 2004. But its push to expand in the country is now exquisitely well timed. The pro-business Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a digital revolution the centerpiece of his government. And some Indian conglomerates have been answering his call. Modi campaigned for office in 2014 on a promise of getting all Indians online. Then in 2016 he invalidated most of India’s paper currency in circulation at the time, effectively pushing millions onto digital payment systems. The government also put public services like health insurance online, and it introduced a national sales tax in 2016 that required businesses to file digital records. A national ID card now collects biometric data on every citizen.

印度的數字政策有時顯得過于專橫，讓許多窮人苦不堪言。但官員們堅稱，唯有采取孤注一擲的措施，才有望推動現金占據絕對主導地位，大多數人不納稅的印度經濟得以改善。每個月約有100萬印度人進入就業市場，但大多數人仍然生活在農村，機會少得可憐。“要想實現每年9%或10%的增長，我們需要的不僅僅是實體基礎設施，還需要數字基礎設施。”改造印度國家研究院（NITI Aayog）的首席執行官阿米塔布·康德表示。這家擁有官方背景的研究院是印度數字化戰略的領導機構。康德在他的新德里辦公室接受采訪時宣稱：“倘若我們到處建造實體銀行和實體學校，聘請銀行經理的話，那將需要數百年的時間。”外面的大廳擺放著一尊圣雄甘地雕像——這位印度民族英雄裹著紗籠，正在冥想，腳邊放著玫瑰花瓣。它微妙地提醒人們，印度的數字政策是出于國家利益考量。“中國花了30年讓大部分人口擺脫貧困，美國則花了將近100年時間。”康德說。“印度在未來15年實現脫貧目標的唯一途徑就是數字化跨越。”

如果不是印度最大的企業集團信實工業多年前做出的一項決定，這種數字化跨越可能會在一開始就遭遇失敗。2011年，以石油和基礎設施作為核心業務的信實工業決定建設一個龐大的寬帶網絡，盡管該公司并沒有相關經驗，更不用說這個領域還有很多競爭對手。信實收購了一家擁有移動頻譜經營牌照的電信公司，隨即與其他公司展開正面較量。彼時，只有2800萬印度人擁有智能手機。信實的目標是用寬帶覆蓋印度，而當時只有大城市才能享受這種服務。于是，在建造了幾十年管道和煉油廠之后，信實在印度各地建起了22萬座移動通信塔，通常一天就能建成700多座。該項目總共耗資300多億美元。

2016年9月，信實隆重推出Reliance Jio電信網絡，并且為新用戶提供前六個月移動數據免費禮包。印度人不愿錯過這個機會，爭相恐后地報名登記。在短短六個月內，Reliance Jio就簽下了 1 億用戶。在去年9月成立兩周年之際，該公司的簽約用戶已達2.5億人。其廉價的“流量包”引發一場價格戰，拉低了印度的數據價格——現在，每 GB數據的價格已經從2016年的4.50美元左右降至區區15美分——由此顯著蠶食了競爭對手的利潤。事實證明，這種定價策略堪稱神來之筆，它確立了信實作為一家手機和互聯網服務供應商的傲然地位。Reliance Jio現在銷售價格為20美元的手機，并且正在推出面向汽車、電視顯示器和家用電器的聯網設備。

India’s digital policies have seemed dictatorial at times, and for many poorer Indians, they have been painful. But officials insist desperate measures are essential to improve an overwhelmingly cash economy, where most people pay no taxes. About a million Indians enter the job market every month, yet most people still live in rural villages, with few opportunities. “More than physical infrastructure, we need digital infrastructure if we are to grow at 9% or 10% a year,” says Amitabh Kant, CEO of the government’s National Institution for Transforming India, or NITI Aayog, which spearheads India’s digital strategy. “If we were to go around building physical banks and physical schools, and hiring bank managers, it would take us hundreds of years,” Kant says, sitting in his New Delhi office. Outside, the lobby features a statue of national hero Mahatma Gandhi meditating in a sarong, with rose petals at his feet—a subtle reminder that India’s digital policies are for the good of the nation. “China took 30 years to lift the vast segment of its population above the poverty line. America took close to 100 years,” says Kant. “The only way India can do this in the next 15 years is to digitally leapfrog.”

That leapfrogging might have sputtered on takeoff had it not been for a decision taken by one giant Indian company, the country’s biggest conglomerate, Reliance Industries. In 2011, Reliance, whose core business was oil and infrastructure, decided to build a vast broadband network, a business in which it had no experience but plenty of rivals. It had acquired a telecom company that owned mobile spectrum licenses, and it muscled in on its competitors. Barely 28 million Indians then owned smartphones. Reliance aimed to blanket India with broadband coverage, which was available only in big cities. After decades building pipelines and refineries, Reliance erected 220,000 mobile towers across India, often building more than 700 in a single day. In all, the project cost more than $30 billion.

In September 2016 it launched the Reliance Jio telecom network, offering people free mobile data for the first six months. Indians stampeded to grab the offer. Reliance Jio signed 100 million subscribers within six months and 250 million by its second anniversary last September. Its cheap plans set off a price war and drove down India’s data prices, from about $4.50 a gigabyte in 2016 to a rock-bottom 15￠ now, cutting deeply into competitors’ profits. For Reliance the pricing proved a masterstroke, establishing itself as a key phone and Internet service provider. Reliance Jio now sells $20 phones, and it is rolling out connected devices for cars, TV monitors, and home appliances.

拜Reliance Jio史詩般的影響力所賜，印度迅速地從一個數字封閉落后之所轉變為世界上互聯網發展速度最快的國家。在《財富》雜志去年9月發布的年度“改變世界”企業榜單中，Reliance Jio高居榜首。“如果你仔細想想，你會看到經濟差距、語言不平等和距離不平等，而這些正是我們從根本上突破的障礙。”當我在位于孟買郊區、綠樹成蔭的Reliance Jio園區見到該公司的總裁馬修·烏曼時，這位來自于印度南部的喀拉拉邦、曾經在美國無線運營商Sprint擔任首席技術官的高管這樣說道。他說，他深信廉價的數據已經永恒地提振了印度人的前景。他以宏大的詞匯描述其成果。“他們不僅僅是網絡連接的用戶，而且已經成為數字經濟體的公民。”他說。“這是從根本上顛覆印度社會和經濟結構的工具。”

For India, Reliance Jio’s impact has been seismic. The country went from being a digital backwater to being home to the world’s biggest boom in Internet usage. Last September, Fortune placed Reliance Jio in the first spot on its annual Change the World ranking of companies. “If you think about it, we saw economic disparity, language inequality, and distance inequality. And that is what we fundamentally broke,” says Reliance Jio president Mathew Oommen when we met at Reliance’s leafy campus on the edge of Mumbai. Oommen, who is from the southern Indian state of Kerala, was previously chief technology officer for the U.S. cellular company Sprint. He says he is convinced that cheap data has forever boosted Indians’ prospects, and he speaks of the results in grandiose terms. “They did not just become subscribers of connectivity. They have all become citizens of the digital economy,” he says. “This was just the vehicle to fundamentally disrupt the social and economic fabric of India.”