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Fearing AI headwind, the Nifty IT index, which comprises TCS, Infosys, HCLTech, and other Indian tech companies, has declined over 20% within just a month.
The IT sector’s flagship stocks, including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, have seen steep market corrections recently as investors reassess growth trajectories in the face of rapid advances in artificial intelligence. (AI-generated image)
India’s $250-billion IT services sector seems to be facing a Kodak moment, with industry voices anticipating that artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to eliminate coding jobs soon. Fearing this, the Nifty IT index, which comprises TCS, Infosys, HCLTech, and other Indian tech companies, has declined over 20% within just a month. However, Indian IT companies are racing into AI partnerships to secure their future.
The sector’s flagship stocks, including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, have seen steep market corrections recently as investors reassess growth trajectories in the face of rapid advances in AI that can automate coding, testing and routine software work. This risk has contributed to renewed volatility and selective sector recovery attempts.
At the same time, India’s biggest service providers are aggressively forging alliances with global AI builders to embed next-generation capabilities in enterprise technology stacks, effectively repositioning themselves from coding houses into AI integrators and transformation partners.
TCS and OpenAI: Building AI Infrastructure and Deployment Pipelines
TCS, part of the Tata Group, has signed a strategic multi-year collaboration with OpenAI, the US-based generative AI pioneer. Under the pact, TCS’ HyperVault AI Data Center unit and OpenAI will co-develop high-capacity AI infrastructure in India, starting with 100 MW and expandable to 1 GW of next-gen compute capacity. This hardware backbone will support large-scale model training and inference workloads, positioning Indian enterprises to deploy robust AI solutions domestically and globally.
The partnership includes joint go-to-market initiatives and an AI skills component aimed at empowering one million Indian youth with generative AI expertise. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said India’s combination of talent, ambition and policy support positions it to help shape the future of AI, while Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran described the deal as a milestone in India’s vision for global AI leadership.
The alliance is part of a broader data-centre and infrastructure push at the India AI Impact Summit, where global tech companies — including Microsoft and Nvidia — announced billions in investment commitments for India’s AI ecosystem.
Infosys and Anthropic: Enterprise AI at Scale
India’s second-largest IT services firm, Infosys, has also entered a strategic partnership with Anthropic, the AI developer of Claude. Infosys will build and deploy AI software tailored to enterprise domains — including telecommunications, financial services and manufacturing — powered by Anthropic’s models and development frameworks.
| Date | Indian company / organisation | AI major / partner | Short description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 May 2024 | Wipro | Microsoft / Azure OpenAI | Wipro announced generative-AI virtual assistants and solutions powered by Azure and Azure OpenAI Service for financial services. |
| 30 Jun 2025 | HCLTech | OpenAI | HCLTech announced a multi-year strategic collaboration to be an OpenAI strategic services partner (access to models/APIs for enterprise offerings). |
| 19 Nov 2025 | LTIMindtree | Microsoft (Azure) | LTIMindtree deepened its global partnership with Microsoft to accelerate Azure adoption and AI transformation for enterprises. |
| 12 Dec 2025 | Wipro | Microsoft (expanded) | Wipro & Microsoft announced an expanded suite of enterprise AI offerings (further integrations across Azure AI Foundry, Copilot, GitHub Copilot). |
| 17 Feb 2026 | Infosys | Anthropic | Infosys and Anthropic announced a collaboration (Anthropic Centre of Excellence + agent/LLM solutions starting in telecommunications and regulated industries). |
| 19 Feb 2026 | Tata Group (incl. TCS capacity plans) | OpenAI | Tata Group and OpenAI announced a foundational partnership — OpenAI to become a customer for Tata’s HyperVault AI-ready data-center capacity (initial 100 MW; can scale). |
| 19 Feb 2026 | Pine Labs | OpenAI | Pine Labs announced a collaboration with OpenAI to enable “agentic commerce” (payments + conversational agents) and integrate OpenAI APIs into its platform. |
| 20 Feb 2026 | Tech Mahindra | NVIDIA | Tech Mahindra announced a tie-up with NVIDIA under Project Indus — launching a Hindi-focused education LLM (Project Indus model powered by NVIDIA tech). |
| 23 Feb 2026 | Capgemini (global) | OpenAI | Capgemini joined OpenAI’s Frontier initiative (example of consultancy × OpenAI moves relevant to Indian enterprise clients working with Capgemini in India). |
The deal goes beyond simple licensing: Anthropic is establishing a centre of excellence with Infosys to create and operationalise AI agents — intelligent systems that conduct tasks ranging from automated code generation to workflow orchestration and process automation.
This collaboration underscores how Indian IT players are leaning into the rapid evolution of AI foundational models as a way to shift from cost-plus outsourcing to high-value enterprise transformation services.
Tech Mahindra and Nvidia: AI Platforms Meet Telecom and Enterprise Workflows
Tech Mahindra, another major Indian IT and consulting group, has allied with Nvidia to weave accelerated computing and AI platforms into core enterprise operations. Nvidia’s AI Enterprise stack and model tooling are being used by Tech Mahindra to build autonomous network operations tools and enterprise AI frameworks that improve service reliability and efficiency across telecom and industrial clients.
Separately, Nvidia has forged a suite of partnerships with Indian technology firms — including TCS, Infosys, Persistent Systems and Wipro — for GPU-based infrastructure, software platforms and AI development environments that span industrial applications and enterprise use cases.
These alliances bring together Nvidia’s hardware and AI stack with India’s systems integrators, enabling firms like Tech Mahindra to embed advanced AI capabilities while retaining service and transformation margin potential.
Why These Deals Matter
These partnerships reflect a wider strategic pivot within India’s IT ecosystem. Once defined by offshore coding, manual testing and time-and-material billable hours, the sector is reinventing itself as:
AI integrators that embed, customise and scale generative models in enterprise environments;
Infrastructure partners that build local compute capacity instead of relying solely on public cloud providers;
Talent developers that reskill workforces for AI-driven delivery models.
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February 26, 2026, 12:52 IST
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