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The combined mcap of India’s leading IT services firms, including TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech and Tech Mahindra, is roughly $240 billion, against Anthropic’s $380 billion.
The stark divergence between Anthropic’s valuation and that of a cluster of traditional tech stalwarts reflects a broader re-rating underway in the technology sector.
Anthropic’s latest funding round, a massive $30 billion raise, has more than doubled the valuation of the Claude chatbot maker to $380 billion, underscoring intensifying investor interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and signalling a shift in global technology capital flows.
By contrast, the combined market capitalisation of India’s leading IT services firms, including TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech and Tech Mahindra, is roughly $240 billion, according to an ET report.
The Anthropic funding round, co-led by D. E. Shaw Ventures, ICONIQ and MGX, also included continued commitments from major strategic partners including Microsoft and Nvidia. This latest infusion follows Anthropic’s $13 billion Series F just months earlier, which had valued the company at $183 billion. The rapid escalation in valuation highlights the premium investors are placing on AI platforms with strong commercial traction.
Anthropic has carved out a differentiated position by emphasizing developer-friendly capabilities — particularly through Claude Code, a coding-oriented model that has gained strong uptake among enterprise users. The company’s recent launch of a new series of plugins for its Cowork agent has drawn attention for its potential to accelerate automation across software workflows, triggering volatility in global software equities as markets price in the disruptive implications.
By contrast, the combined market capitalisation of India’s leading IT services firms — including TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech and Tech Mahindra — is roughly $240 billion, according to recent industry reports. The stark divergence between Anthropic’s valuation and that of a cluster of traditional tech stalwarts reflects a broader re-rating underway in the technology sector.
For India’s IT services industry, which is estimated to be a $250-billion sector, the rapid valuation expansion of AI pure-plays presents both a challenge and an inflection point. Industry observers have warned of a potential ‘Kodak moment’, where entrenched business models built around labour-intensive coding and outsourcing face structural disruption from advanced AI systems capable of automating large portions of routine development work.
These anxieties have been reflected in market performance: the Nifty IT index, which tracks major Indian technology stocks, has declined more than 20 per cent over the past month as investors reassess growth prospects in an AI-first environment. At the same time, India’s IT firms are actively pursuing AI partnerships, platform playbook revisions, and capability upgrades to safeguard their future relevance.
Meanwhile, rival generative AI developer OpenAI is reportedly in talks to secure additional investment of up to $30 billion from SoftBank Group, potentially pricing the company around $830 billion — a valuation more than three times larger than Anthropic’s newly minted figure.
The contrast between burgeoning AI valuations and the comparatively modest market caps of legacy IT services underscores a broader shift in the global technology landscape — from labour arbitrage and services delivery toward platform economics, AI-driven automation, and intellectual property-centric models. For Indian tech companies, the coming months will test their ability to pivot, innovate and align with the accelerating AI imperative.
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February 26, 2026, 13:42 IST
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