The overarching narrative is that Indian equity markets missed out on the global artificial intelligence boom. But a look under the hood reveals a slew of smaller firms winning from trillions of dollars being spent on AI capacity.The poster child for this rally is Sterlite Technologies Ltd., the optical-fiber maker owned by the Vedanta Group which has surged 500 per cent this year. It got a $1.1 billion multi-year contract from a US-based hyperscaler last month. Its competitor, HFCL Ltd., has jumped 176 per cent while MTAR Technologies Ltd., which makes precision cooling and power components, has more than trebled.An equal-weighted Bloomberg index of 28 Indian companies that feed the data-center ecosystem — from makers of transformers, switchgear, wires to cables and cooling systems — has added about $48 billion in combined market value this year, a rise of nearly 45per cent. The benchmark NSE Nifty 500, meanwhile, has lost over $300 billion in 2026.Since every AI query runs through power-hungry data centers which require immense electricity and cooling, old-economy industrial firms have transformed into India’s hottest market play. In Mumbai dealing rooms, it’s called the ‘AI capex trade.’“We may be on the wrong end of the AI trade, but we could be on the right side of the AI capex trade,” said R. Sivakumar, chief investment officer at Axis Mutual Fund. “One could consider companies benefiting from data centers and the entire value chain associated with this capex.”Amazon.com Inc. plans to invest $12.7 billion in cloud infrastructure in India through 2030, while Alphabet Inc. is spending about $15 billion on an AI infrastructure hub in Visakhapatnam.A Reliance Industries Ltd. joint venture signed an $11 billion pact to build local data centers last year, while AdaniConnex Pvt. has partnerships with Google as well as Uber Technologies Inc. to help build their data centers. ‘Picks and Shovels’“The most attractive exposure is in the industrial supply chain — the ‘picks and shovels’ that build, power, and cool these facilities,” Nomura Holdings Inc. analysts led by Akash Gupta wrote in a June 2 report.Also, a two-to-four year lead time in supplying some components has “created an enviable seller’s market with multi-year backlogs,” Nomura analysts wrote, adding that orders secured now will bring revenue between 2027 and 2029.Foreign investors are already piling in. Shareholding of foreign funds in industrials rose to 14 per cent as of end-March, the highest in two years, according to Elara Capital (India) Pvt., even as global funds remain record sellers of Indian stocks.On a top-down basis, India is one of the worst-performing markets globally as it lacks pure-play AI firms and semiconductor makers that are turbocharging Taiwanese and South Korean equities. But the global obsession with generative AI is boosting those that keep these hyperscalers running, such as Hitachi Energy India Ltd., ABB India Ltd. and Cummins India Ltd.The runaway rallies of these below-the-radar beneficiaries are largely invisible in headline numbers, as many of them — Sterlite and MTAR for instance — remain excluded from the broadest domestic indexes.“The rally in companies like Sterlite and MTAR is driven by the market’s growing conviction that AI is creating a multi-year infrastructure capex cycle, not just a software opportunity,” according to Angel One.Total investments in global hyperscale data centers are likely to exceed $1.2 trillion between 2025 and 2027, estimates Angel One. This will also expand the customer base for these equipment manufacturers.Mahesh Viswanathan, chief executive officer of Finolex Cables Ltd. said in an earnings call last month that this was “the right time to be in this industry.” Finolex’s have surged 40 per cent this year.The market is rewarding companies with visible AI-linked earnings rather than just thematic exposure, according to Angel One. Also, the biggest near-term risk is valuation as share rallies have left “no room for execution disappointments,” the brokerage added.China Curbs For instance, Anant Raj Ltd., the only listed pure-play data center firm, has gained just about 4% this year. Meanwhile, Sterlite is trading at about 66 times its 12-month forward earnings, compared to NSE 500’s 20 times. Some of the regional heavyweights have already seen a sell-off.Data centers in India are “a real, long-term story” but another thing to watch out for is the policy stance on Chinese firms, according to Sonam Srivastava, founder of portfolio management firm Mumbai-based Wright Research. “If restrictions on Chinese equipment firms are relaxed, we could see sharp corrections as we saw back in January,” she said.No market watcher, however, is downplaying this opportunity.“Data center capex has emerged as the single largest contemporary industrial investment cycle,” Nomura analysts wrote. It’s “larger than the global wireless 4G roll out, the post-2008 LNG build-out, or the early-2010s shale boom.”More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comPublished on June 5, 2026