New Delhi, Feb. 23 -- AN INVESTOR WAKING from a stupor that began on New Year's Eve might question whether they had missed anything. The S&P 500 share index of big American firms sits almost exactly where it did at the end of 2025: nearly at a record high. There has been no shortage of geopolitical drama, but little sign of it in the trajectory of the world's most watched index.

Beneath this calm surface, however, the churn in America's financial markets has been furious. A panic about what artificial intelligence will do to business models has prompted software firms' stock prices to tumble: they are more than 30% below a recent peak last year. And it is not just software companies that investors worry will be disrupted by the rise of A...