Shares of Sterlite Technologies dropped 5% to hit the lower circuit on Monday, after a massive 56% surge in one month and a whopping 474% rally so far in 2026, as a pause in the global AI optimism dampened sentiment.
Shares of the company remained locked in the lower circuit at Rs 588.30 apiece on NSE in the morning trading hours of Monday.
AI rally slams the brakes
South Koreaās Kospi plunged 9% on Monday morning, leading to a 20-minute trading halt, as the massive selloff in tech stocks raged on. The index is now down about 14% from the record high it touched last week. The sharp downturn came after heavyweights and semiconductor stocks tumbled, including Samsung shares which crashed over 6%.
The sharp plunge in Kospi reflects the sharp pause in the AI rally, as too much of the benchmark indexās earlier momentum had become tied to the performance of a small group of AI-linked stocks. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for nearly half of the KOSPI's weighting and have contributed roughly two-thirds of the benchmark's gains this year.
Also read: Kospi crashes 9%, trading halted for 20 minutes, as chip rout deepens; Samsung, SK Hynix worst hit
Sterlite Technologies shares had emerged as one of the biggest multibaggers of 2026, riding on explosive demand for AI-linked data centre infrastructure. Sterlite, the optical-fiber maker owned by the Vedanta Group, was seen as the āposter childā for the AI boom. This came amid expectations that the worldās AI expansion needs massive amounts of high-speed connectivity infrastructure, and optical fibre is becoming the backbone of that ecosystem.
The company late in May announced that its subsidiary has secured a multi-year supply agreement valued at $1.11 billion from a global hyperscaler for AI-ready data centre infrastructure projects in the US. Hong Kong-based CLSA had said that this significantly strengthens Sterliteās positioning in AI data centres while improving medium-term growth visibility. It expected the order to reinforce Sterliteās competitiveness in global markets, while maintaining an āOutperformā rating on the stock.
However, the sharp crash in tech stocks led to rising worries that the AI rally was fizzling out, which may have led to the downtrend in Sterlite Tech shares today.
Also read: Hidden AI Winners
Sterlite Tech shares have gained 5% in one week and 56% in one month. The stock delivered a whopping 676% return over one year, 282% over three years and 119% in five years.
The company currently has a market capitalisation of nearly Rs 28,719 crore.
