Public-Private Partnership in Digital Infrastructure as a Mechanism for Attracting Investment in High-Tech Development: International Experience and Lessons for Ukraine

The article examines public-private partnership (PPP) in digital infrastructure as a mechanism for attracting investment, including international capital, for high-tech development. The aim of the article is to substantiate the role of PPP in digital infrastructure as an institutional mechanism for attracting investment to foster high-tech development; to identify the factors determining the effectiveness of various contractual arrangements for such partnerships; to propose a model of threshold conditions for transitioning from financing to technology transfer; and to outline the possibilities for its application in Ukraine. The concepts of international investment, foreign direct investment, PPP and technology transfer are distinguished. Based on a comparative analysis of four diverse broadband infrastructure cases – the KT Rwanda Networks joint venture (Rwanda), the planned BharatNet concession (India), the public initiative network concessions under the France Très Haut Débit plan (France), and the long-term lease of the Huntsville Utilities municipal fibre network to Google Fiber (USA) – the institutional, financial and managerial factors of partnership performance are identified. It is shown that high service coverage does not guarantee the financial sustainability of a partnership (Rwanda, where deteriorating financial results ended with the cancellation of exclusive terms), while approved budget co-financing does not guarantee even the emergence of a private partner (India, where the concession tender attracted no qualified bidders). A conceptual model of the PPP “performance corridor” is proposed. It is argued that PPP performance is determined not by the mere attraction of private capital but by the quality of risk allocation, contractual requirements for competence development and the state’s bargaining capacity. Public materials do not allow the scale of competence transfer to be assessed in any of the cases, nor whether the contracts contained relevant requirements and how they were fulfilled; this calls for analysis of the contracts themselves and for public reporting on competence development. Drawing on Law of Ukraine No. 4510-IX, the prerequisites and limitations of using PPP in digital infrastructure during post-war recovery are outlined.