Sterlite Tech shares gained 5% to their day’s high of Rs 600, while HFCL shares were locked in a 5% upper circuit. Both stocks had fallen 8% each over the previous two sessions.
Sentiment improved significantly across global markets, with South Korea’s KOSPI, the world’s best-performing stock market this year, surging more than 8% in a single session. In the U.S., the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.54% on Thursday as investors returned to beaten-down technology names.
Easing geopolitical tensions and a decline in oil prices, which slipped to a two-month low, added to the risk-on mood, boosting optimism across equity markets. The shift in sentiment followed comments from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said a peace deal with Iran could be reached as early as this weekend.
Can you buy Sterlite Tech, HFCL shares?
Even as India continues to lag markets such as South Korea and Taiwan in direct exposure to the AI and semiconductor cycle, a different AI-linked investment theme is gathering momentum at home, and Sterlite Tech and HFCL are direct beneficiaries.
Both companies are involved in the business of manufacturing optical fibre cables among other verticals. India’s data centre industry is entering a multi-year growth phase, driven by accelerating digitalisation, rising cloud adoption and growing artificial intelligence demand.
Sterlite Technologies has emerged as the biggest winner from the theme, soaring 488% in 2026. Yet analysts believe the rally may not be over. Hong Kong-based CLSA expects the stock to climb another 14.5% from current levels following the company’s $1 billion order win from a US hyperscaler.
With a target of Rs 655, the brokerage says order significantly strengthens Sterlite’s positioning in AI data centres while improving medium-term growth visibility. CLSA expects the deal to reinforce the company’s competitiveness in global markets and is now modelling a 49% EBITDA CAGR between FY26 and FY29 while maintaining an “Outperform” rating on the stock. HFCL has also been among the standout performers, gaining 170% in 2026. The March quarter marked a sharp turnaround for the company. Revenue nearly doubled year-on-year to Rs 1,824 crore, EBITDA swung to Rs 315 crore from negative territory a year earlier, while profit after tax improved to Rs 184 crore from a loss of Rs 83 crore.
“The structural shift is real. Product revenue has grown from 27% of the mix in FY21 to 59% in FY26, and exports now account for 41% of revenue. That’s a business fundamentally changing its character,” said Balaji Rao, Research Analyst at Bonanza.
Beyond optical fibre cables, HFCL is also expanding aggressively into defence and aerospace through the Defsys acquisition. The company is setting up a Rs 1,000-acre ammunition complex in Andhra Pradesh and scaling up its data centre interconnect solutions business, targeting revenue of Rs 400 crore in FY27 and Rs 800 crore in FY28. Its optical fibre cable capacity is set to expand by 25% by December 2026, while backward integration into preforms is expected to reduce raw material costs by 15-20%.
According to international brokerage Nomura, India’s data centre IT load has expanded from around 350 MW in 2019 to nearly 1.5-1.6 GW in 2025, translating into a CAGR of about 29%, compared with roughly 20% globally. As a result, India’s share of global data centre capacity has increased from around 1.5% in 2019 to approximately 2-3% in 2025.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)
