HFCL rallies on data-centre AI boom

HFCL Ltd. shares surged nearly 200% in six months as investors bet on India's data-centre expansion and AI-related capital expenditure. The company reported FY26 consolidated revenue of Rs 4,949 crore and secured a major international order worth Rs 10,159 crore for optical fibre cables.

HFCL rallies on data-centre AI boom Per ETMarkets, HFCL shares have rallied nearly 200% in six months as investors price India's data-centre expansion and AI capex, according to reporting by Economic Times and Business Standard. HFCL reported a FY26 consolidated revenue of Rs 4,949 crore , EBITDA of around Rs 827 crore , and profit after tax of approximately Rs 329 crore , and its March quarter revenue was Rs 1,824 crore with EBITDA of Rs 315 crore , per ETMarkets. The company also secured a major international order worth about Rs 10,159 crore , ETMarkets reports. Industry data cited by Nomura shows India's data-centre IT load grew from ~ 350 MW in 2019 to 1.5-1.6 GW in 2025, a ~29% CAGR, Bloomberg and ETMarkets report. Industry coverage frames HFCL as one of several "AI capex" beneficiaries alongside peers such as Sterlite Technologies and MTAR Technologies. What happened 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 context 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. Technical details / Editorial analysis 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. Context and significance Editorial analysis: 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. What to watch 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 . Scoring Rationale The story matters to practitioners because accelerated data-centre capex directly affects infrastructure suppliers and procurement pipelines. It is a market-moving corporate-earnings and contract story rather than a frontier-model or platform release, so its practitioner relevance is notable but not transformative. Practice interview problems based on real data 1,500+ SQL & Python problems across 15 industry datasets — the exact type of data you work with. Try 250 free problems /problems