HCL Share Price Tumbles As AI Disruption Fears Pummel Indian Tech Stock

The stock price of the third-largest India-based IT services firm by revenue and market cap dropped by nearly 9% over the past five days as the nation’s IT sector crumbles.

HCL share price currently hovers at ₹1,460.80, or approximately $16.10, down by 1% over the past 24 hours.

The Nifty IT Index, which tracks the performance of India’s leading IT companies, is down by 8% over the past five days.

Anthropic Shock

India’s top IT companies suffer from extensive losses as investors fear that AI-driven automation could disrupt the nation’s traditional business outsourcing model. 

The bloodbath in IT stocks comes as AI safety and research company Anthropic launches its latest artificial intelligence model Claude Opus 4.6, which the firm touts as its most powerful model for coding, agents and enterprise workflows. 

“If I think about the last year, Claude went from a model that you can sort of talk to to accomplish a very small task or get an answer, to something that you can actually hand real significant work to,” Anthropic’s head of product for enterprise Scott White told CNBC in an interview. “Opus 4.6 is a model that makes that shift really concrete for our users.”

The so-called “Anthropic shock” sparked concerns that AI’s ability to automate previously manpower-intensive tasks could disrupt entire layers of the software value chain, weaken revenue growth and likely lead to worker layoffs.

“Waning expectations of a near-term U.S. rate cut and pressure due to the evolving concerns over potential disruptions from AI is intensifying the sharp sell-off in IT stocks, hurting market sentiment,” said Bajaj Broking Research, according to Reuters.

Disruption, Not Extinction

Amid the downturn, Helios Capital founder Samir Arora said that AI will not necessarily end India’s IT sector because disruption does not equate to extinction.

“Whatsapp disrupted SMS but you still use SMS. OTT disrupted TV and theatres but you still see TV and go to movies.Fear of disruption can mean lower valuations, lower growth expectations, lower terminal growth assumptions- all leading to underperforming stock prices.”