IT index rises nearly 3% on Nandan Nilekani, Anthropic CEO's remarks; Infosys leads gains: Here's what they said

IT index rises nearly 3% on Nandan Nilekani, Anthropic CEO's remarks; Infosys leads gains: Here's what they said

• Indian IT stocks surged after positive AI commentary from leaders
• Infosys shares led gains, Nifty IT index rose nearly 3% to day's high
• Infosys and Anthropic announced a strategic AI partnership

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The shares of Indian IT companies surged in trade on February 17 as positive commentary from Infosys Co-Founder Nandan Nilekani and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei boosted investor sentiment.

The sharp rise in the share prices pushed the Nifty IT index up nearly 3 percent to hit the day's high at 33,703.10 on Tuesday. Infosys shares gained more than 4 percent, leading gains on the IT index, while other heavyweights like HCL Tech, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and TCS gained up to 3 percent.

However, by the end of the day, IT stocks saw some profit booking and the Nifty IT index closed only 1 percent higher at 33,075.05.

Here's what Nandan Nilekani said:

Speaking at Infosys Investor AI Day, Nandan Nilekani addressed the worries around artificial intelligence's impact on IT services firms, which earlier sent the stocks to a tailspin. “In my view is there is no opportunity gap. AI is fundamentally good for companies like Infosys. So, don't get distracted by that,” he said.

He added that the opportunity is bigger than ever before. It is about productivity out of those tools, according to the Infosys Chairman. “When we train people, they have to learn to do this without tools. If you start by teaching them tools then everything is a black box, So, first principle thinking is very important. Talent transformation is huge. You will need talent such as QA testing or development. We have all kinds of new roles AI engineers, forward deployment engineers, AI leads, forensic analyst,” he further said.

Nilekani highlighted that AI poses an execution risk, not an opportunity risk. “Firms need to have their execution plan ready to scale and have new mindsets,” he explained.

He added that writing code will no longer be the objective for software technology professionals as artificial intelligence (AI) fundamentally changes how software is built and deployed. “Talent will have to deal with the world where writing code will not be the goal, it will be actually making AI work. So, the jobs will change and operating model (too),” he said.

Here's what Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said:

While announcing a strategic AI partnership with Infosys, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said there is a big gap between an AI model that works in a demo and one that works in a regulated industry – and if you want to close that gap, you need domain expertise. He added that Infosys has that kind of expertise across important industries: telecom, financial services, and manufacturing.

"Their developers are already using Claude Code to accelerate their work and to create AI agents for industries that demand precision, compliance, and deep domain knowledge," he added.

Infosys CEO Salil Parekh meanwhile said AI is not just transforming business – it is redefining the way industries operate and innovate. "Our collaboration with Anthropic marks a strategic leap toward advancing enterprise AI, enabling organizations to unlock value and become more intelligent, resilient, and responsible. From modernizing financial services with intelligent risk management and compliance, to enabling engineering businesses to lead with AI-driven design and manufacturing, the goal is to leverage the joint expertise of Infosys and Anthropic to accelerate AI value realization for global enterprises," he added.

These comments come after the IT stocks saw significant decline earlier this month amid concerns that artificial intelligence can intensify competition after Anthropic's launch of a legal AI tool for its Claude AI chatbot. Investors remained concerned that AI was creating more competition for software makers. IT index had lost 8.2 percent last week, its worst performance in 11 months.

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