IT stocks are once again in focus, but for all the red reasons. The sector is once again facing huge losses after Anthropic highlighted the potential of its cloud code tools to modernize legacy systems built on COBOL, raising new concerns across the sector. Infosys slipped more than 3%, while shares of HCL Technologies, Mphasis and Persistent Systems also fell more than 2%, while TCS, Tech Mahindra and Wipro also fell around 2% each. The Nifty IT index fell by 1,169.95 or 3.71% to 30,380.55 at 11 am due to weakness in the heavyweight stocks. Infosys was down 47.40 points or 3.57% at 1,280.10 on the NSE. At the same time, TCS fell by 76.70 points or 2.87% to 2,599.60 and HCL Tech fell by 62.20 points or 4.36% to 1,364.00. Wipro fell 4.65 points or 2.26% to 201.24. Mphasis and Persistent Systems also traded in the red, down over 2% and 5% respectively.As reported by ET, the market reaction came after Anthropic’s statement that its cloud code offering can automate a significant portion of the exploration and analysis involved in COBOL modernization. This segment has been an important business area for IBM, which has long promoted mainframe systems designed for large-scale transaction processing environments where COBOL is used extensively. COBOL, or Common Business-Oriented Language, was developed in the late 1950s and has been widely deployed in business data processing applications such as payment processing and retail transaction systems. Anthropic estimates that about 95% of ATM transactions in the US still run on COBOL, underscoring the scale of potential AI-based cost disruption. “Hundreds of billions of lines of COBOL run in production every day, powering critical systems in finance, airlines, and government. “Despite this, the number of people who understand it is decreasing every year,” Anthropic said in its latest blog post. Selling pressure in the IT pack intensified earlier this month when Anthropic unveiled another AI product aimed at automating a wide range of professional workflows. This development has reignited concerns that advances in artificial intelligence could harm the profitability and competitive moat of traditional IT service providers.