HFCL rallies on data-centre AI boom

Per ETMarkets (Economic Times), HFCL Ltd. shares have risen nearly 200% over the past six months as markets price in demand from data-centre expansion and AI-related capex. ETMarkets reports HFCL's FY26 consolidated revenue nearly doubled year-on-year to Rs 4,949 crore, with EBITDA around Rs 827 crore and profit after tax about Rs 329 crore. The March quarter figures cited by ETMarkets show revenue of Rs 1,824 crore, EBITDA of Rs 315 crore, and profit after tax of Rs 184 crore versus a loss the prior year. ETMarkets also reports a major international contract for optical fibre cables worth approximately Rs 10,159 crore, described as one of the company's largest orders.

Industry-pattern observations: rapid AI-driven compute growth increases demand for optical-fibre capacity, power distribution, and cooling. Nomura data cited in ETMarkets shows India's data-centre IT load rising from around 350 MW in 2019 to approximately 1.5-1.6 GW in 2025, a ~29% CAGR compared with about 20% globally. Companies supplying fiber, cabling, and related infrastructure typically see multi-year order pipelines when hyperscalers and cloud providers accelerate campus and region builds; public reporting on large multi-year contracts supports that dynamic.

for practitioners, the HFCL case illustrates how AI infrastructure demand propagates into industrial supply chains outside core semiconductor and model-layer firms. The reported FY26 profit turnaround and the cited Rs 10,159 crore contract are concrete, high-impact milestones that investors are pricing, according to ETMarkets. Bloomberg and Business Standard coverage signals this is not an isolated move but part of a sector-wide "AI capex trade" across India's data-centre value chain.

Bloomberg and Business Standard place HFCL's rally in a broader market move where smaller industrial suppliers to data centres have outperformed the broader index. Business Standard reports Sterlite Technologies has gained over 530% year-to-date after a reported $1.1 billion hyperscaler contract, while Business Standard and Bloomberg list HFCL (about 191% gain in one report) and MTAR Technologies (more than 200%) among the top performers. An equal-weighted Bloomberg index of 28 Indian data-centre suppliers added roughly $47 billion in market value this year, per Business Standard and Bloomberg.

observers should track announced hyperscaler capex commitments in India, the timing and delivery schedules of large optical-fibre contracts, and subsequent quarterly order-book disclosures. Market reaction metrics to follow include peers' earnings cadence, export contract wins, and any broker/research updates (for example, Nomura commentary cited in ETMarkets).