Anthropic Commits $11.6 Billion to Akamai Cloud Infrastructure in Record Seven-Year Deal
By admin | Sep 25, 2026 | 3 min read
Anthropic has committed to spending $11.6 billion over seven years on Akamai's cloud infrastructure, according to an announcement from Akamai on Thursday. This figure dwarfs a previously reported $1.8 billion agreement between the two companies that surfaced in May, representing more than six times that amount.
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However, the commitment comes with conditions. Akamai's securities filing reveals that the deal hinges on the company satisfying specific delivery and service-availability benchmarks, and either party retains the right to terminate under certain circumstances.
This contract marks the largest in Akamai's history and extends Anthropic's aggressive pursuit of computing resources. Notably, it signals a wager on an often-overlooked segment of AI infrastructure: CPUs. These general-purpose chips handle tasks like executing code and web browsing, and demand for them has risen as AI agents take on increasingly complex workloads. Akamai did not disclose what Anthropic intends to use the CPUs for.
Akamai won't collect any revenue from the arrangement during the current year. During an investor call on Thursday, executives projected $150 million to $300 million in 2027, beginning in the second half, with revenue climbing to an annual rate of roughly $1.7 billion by the close of 2028.
To expand capacity for the deal, Akamai plans to invest approximately $5.5 billion. The company is also increasing this year's capital expenditures by about $1.7 billion to pre-purchase components including memory.
As part of the agreement, Akamai granted Anthropic a warrant—essentially the right to purchase shares at a predetermined price—for nonvoting preferred stock convertible into 7.7 million common shares, representing up to roughly 5% of Akamai's outstanding stock, at $111.33 per share. Approximately 2% is expected to vest once Anthropic makes its first payment. The remaining portion is contingent on Anthropic spending more. Every additional $3 billion Anthropic commits to Akamai's cloud services unlocks roughly another 1%, meaning the deal could expand by as much as $9 billion, reaching approximately $20 billion in total.
This marks the first instance of Akamai attaching a warrant to a cloud agreement, and the contract stands as the largest in the company's history. The warrant structure inverts the typical pattern seen in circular AI deals, where suppliers—chipmakers and cloud providers—invest directly in the AI labs purchasing their products. In this case, the supplier is offering its customer a potential equity stake that grows alongside Anthropic's spending with Akamai. AMD employed a comparable structure with OpenAI last year, linking warrants to chip-purchase milestones.
Anthropic has familiarity with such arrangements. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and AMD have all invested or committed to invest in the company while simultaneously selling it chips or cloud capacity. CEO Dario Amodei told the New York Times last December that Anthropic does not engage in these deals at the "same scale as some other players."
Akamai shares climbed as much as 17% in after-hours trading on Thursday.
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