IT Stocks Rout: Investors Lose Rs 1.2 Lakh Crore in Three Days as OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra Triggers Sector-Wide Sell-Off

Indian information technology stocks suffered an aggressive sell-off for the third consecutive trading session on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, wiping out over Rs 1.2 lakh crore in combined market capitalization across Nifty IT index constituents. The sharp market correction was spearheaded by industry stalwarts Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Infosys shares tumbled nearly 4% on Wednesday to mark their sixth straight session of losses, shedding over 8% across the week and eroding approximately Rs 35,000 crore in market valuation. Meanwhile, India's largest IT services exporter, TCS, logged its seventh consecutive declining session, plunging over 4.5% this week and erasing more than Rs 37,000 crore from its market cap.

Broad-Based Sector Correction Drags All Ten Nifty IT Constituents Into the Red

The bleeding across the domestic technology sector extended far beyond the industry leaders. Mid-tier and frontline IT firms experienced steep weekly corrections, with Tech Mahindra, Wipro, and Coforge sliding between 5% and 6%. Other prominent players including HCL Tech and LTIMindtree dropped 4% to 5%, with HCL Tech alone shedding more than Rs 14,000 crore in market valuation. Trading data confirmed that all ten components of the Nifty IT index were flashing deep red, reflecting widespread investor anxiety and portfolio rebalancing away from conventional technology service providers.

Why OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra Is Spooking Investors and Threatening Traditional IT Business Models

Market analysts attribute the primary catalyst behind the intense sell-off to escalating fears regarding artificial intelligence disruption. The panic intensified following OpenAI's unveiling of its cutting-edge model, GPT-6 Astra

, touted as the company's most advanced AI release to date. Astra features drastically enhanced capabilities in autonomous computer operation, deep web research, software coding, document creation, and the handling of complex multi-step corporate workflows. Investors fear that such advanced AI automation could eventually supplant traditional IT services, performing routine and complex software tasks faster and at a fraction of the cost, prompting a wholesale reassessment of legacy IT business models.

Global Market Shift: Traditional Services Face Pressure While AI Infrastructure Stocks Rally

Even as traditional IT service providers face severe headwinds, global market dynamics reveal a distinct sector rotation toward AI hardware and computing infrastructure. While software services encounter bearish sentiment, international semiconductor and hardware giants—including Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and Broadcom—recorded robust gains ranging from 3% to 9% in recent trading sessions. Market experts note that while the long-term, real-world impact of advanced AI models like Astra on Indian IT firms remains to be fully seen as enterprise rollouts progress in phases, Wall Street and domestic investors are aggressively favoring the physical chipmakers and computing fabric powering the artificial intelligence revolution.