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Akamai locks in $11.6B as Anthropic bets on CPUs. Akamai signed its largest deal ever, an $11.6B seven-year CPU cloud commitment with Anthropic that could reach $20B. Akamai announced an $11.6 billion, seven-year commitment from Anthropic to power cloud infrastructure for rising demand around its models, according to the announcement. This deal transforms Akamai from a pure delivery network into a main AI compute provider. The agreement leans on CPUs rather than GPUs and could climb toward $20 billion if Anthropic taps extra capacity, per TechCrunch, which also notes Akamai will award Anthropic warrants covering up to 5% of its stock as part of an unusual equity kickback linked to spending. This structure reshapes how teams building large-scale Claude models allocate resources. Workloads that don't need accelerators can move to Akamai Cloud to chase lower prices and better availability, while GPU clusters remain dedicated to training and cutting-edge inference. Operators will need to split deployments, rework autoscaling and routing rules to treat Akamai as a core region instead of an edge cache. Since acquiring Linode and expanding distributed compute, Akamai has pushed its cloud platform hard, yet it still battles AWS, Google Cloud and Azure for enterprise contracts and faces competitors like CoreWeave and Lambda for AI-native capacity. A flagship customer paying around $1.65 billion annually provides steady utilization, justifying data center builds and giving Akamai a foothold convincing buyers who've already tried its delivery and security services. The published release omits details on pricing, prepayment or early termination, and Akamai's own press page didn't go beyond the headline figure at launch. If the CPU focus proves right, cost-conscious inference operations will thrive. Otherwise, Akamai keeps its seven-year commitment intact. (C) 2026 StartupHub.ai. All rights reserved. You may not republish this article in full without a license. Search engines and AI research tools may crawl and summarize for reference. Bulk reproduction or model training requires a license. See our terms. Discussion. Join the conversation below Editor, StartupHub.ai Daniel Singer is the editor of StartupHub.ai, a technology expert and thought leader on AI and its applications across sectors, from fintech and healthcare to developer tooling and consumer software. He writes and tests the tools covered here thoroughly and regularly, and built StartupHub.ai to give founders, operators and buyers a clearer read on what they are actually being sold.

Akamai lands $11.6B Anthropic cloud commitment, with path toward $20B. Anthropic commits approximately $11.6 billion over seven years to Akamai Cloud for dedicated CPU-oriented cloud infrastructure, with an expansion path that could take the relationship to roughly $20 billion. Akamai has secured one of the largest customer commitments in its history, signing an approximately $11.6 billion, seven-year cloud infrastructure agreement with Anthropic. The contract expands an existing relationship under which Akamai provides dedicated cloud computing capacity and managed support services, and is aimed specifically at supporting Anthropic's growing CPU workload requirements. Akamai says the relationship could expand by another $9 billion during the term, taking the potential total commitment to approximately $20 billion. The infrastructure buildout is substantial. Akamai estimates approximately $5.5 billion of cumulative capital expenditures associated with the initial $11.6 billion commitment. Its investor presentation indicates roughly $1.7 billion of CapEx in Q4 2026, primarily to secure critical supply-chain components including memory, followed by approximately $3.1 billion in 2027 and $700 million in 2028. Service initiation is expected in late Q2 2027, with revenue ramping through the second half of that year and throughout 2028. Akamai expects to reach the full contracted revenue run rate by the end of 2028, followed by approximately $1.7 billion of annual revenue recognized ratably through the remainder of the contract. The agreement also creates an unusually tight financial alignment between the two companies. Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant covering non-voting convertible preferred stock equivalent, on an as-converted basis, to as many as 7.7 million Akamai common shares, or approximately 5% of shares outstanding. The common-stock-equivalent exercise price is $111.33 per share. A tranche corresponding to roughly 2% of Akamai shares is associated with the initial commitment, while the remaining approximately 3% can vest as Anthropic adds contractual commitments. Each additional $3 billion of cloud services contracted under the agreement triggers another tranche representing approximately 1% of Akamai shares outstanding. | Akamai-Anthropic Agreement: Key Numbers | | Initial commitment | ~$11.6 billion over seven years | | Expansion option | Up to an additional $9 billion | | Potential total | ~$20 billion | | Workload | Dedicated cloud capacity supporting CPU workload growth | | Estimated CapEx | ~$5.5 billion for initial commitment | | Service start | Expected beginning late Q2 2027 | | Full run rate | Expected by end of 2028 | | Steady-state revenue | Approximately $1.7 billion/year thereafter | | Anthropic warrant | Up to approximately 5% of Akamai common stock outstanding | Akamai CEO and co-founder Tom Leighton said the company's expanding global footprint and experience operating distributed infrastructure position it to support AI applications and workloads at scale. Akamai Cloud spans core-to-edge computing across a distributed network of points of presence, and the Anthropic contract represents a significant acceleration of Akamai's push beyond its traditional content-delivery and security businesses into large-scale cloud infrastructure. Akamai said the Anthropic agreement comes on top of more than $2.8 billion in other multi-year Cloud Infrastructure Services commitments announced across its customer base this year. "Anthropic is advancing the AI revolution and we are thrilled they chose Akamai's capabilities for building and operating AI infrastructure at scale," said Dr. Tom Leighton, co-founder and CEO of Akamai. - Anthropic has committed approximately $11.6 billion to Akamai over seven years. - The contract covers dedicated cloud computing capacity and related managed support services, with Akamai characterizing the workload growth specifically as CPU-oriented. - The commercial relationship can expand by another $9 billion, bringing its potential value to approximately $20 billion. - Akamai estimates approximately $5.5 billion in CapEx to support the initial commitment. - Approximately $1.7 billion of that CapEx is expected in Q4 2026, including advance procurement of memory and other supply-chain components. - Service initiation is expected in late Q2 2027, with the full contracted revenue run rate expected by the end of 2028. - Akamai issued Anthropic warrants potentially representing approximately 5% of Akamai common stock outstanding on an as-converted basis. - The underlying Master Services Agreement dates to May 5, 2026; the two project plans supporting the disclosed $11.6 billion commitment were entered into on September 18, according to Akamai's 8-K. Analysis. The workload description is important. Akamai and Anthropic are not presenting this agreement as another massive GPU-training cluster. The announcement specifically identifies accelerating CPU demand, while the SEC filing describes dedicated cloud computing capacity and managed support services. That makes the agreement complementary to Anthropic's accelerator-heavy relationships with AWS, Google Cloud and specialized AI infrastructure providers rather than a direct replacement for them. Akamai has not disclosed the processor architecture, server suppliers, data-center locations, power footprint or networking architecture for the new capacity. For Akamai, the financial scale materially changes the cloud infrastructure story. The company expects to invest approximately $5.5 billion to fulfill the initial commitment and ultimately reach roughly $1.7 billion in annual contracted revenue from the deployment. Akamai's presentation indicates that the heavy capital deployment is front-loaded: about $4.8 billion of the estimated $5.5 billion is scheduled for Q4 2026 and 2027. The contract therefore represents both a large revenue opportunity and a major infrastructure expansion that must be executed before the revenue reaches steady state. For Anthropic, Akamai adds another infrastructure layer to an already diversified architecture. Converge Digest has previously tracked Anthropic's expanded AWS relationship, including up to 5 GW of capacity; plans for up to one million Google TPUs; and its multi-year CoreWeave agreement. The Akamai contract extends that diversification into large-scale CPU capacity. The resulting infrastructure strategy increasingly separates workloads across different compute architectures rather than treating AI compute as a single homogeneous resource. The warrant structure is also notable because infrastructure consumption and equity participation are directly linked. The initial arrangement can vest a portion corresponding to approximately 2% of Akamai's outstanding common shares, while three further $3 billion contractual increments can each unlock another approximately 1%. That structure gives Anthropic an economic interest in Akamai while giving Akamai incentives tied to expanding the commercial relationship toward the approximately $20 billion ceiling. | Profile: Akamai Technologies | | Company | Akamai Technologies | | Status | NASDAQ: AKAM | | Headquarters | Cambridge, Massachusetts | | Founded | 1998 | | CEO | Dr. Tom Leighton, co-founder | | Core Markets | Cloud Computing - Cybersecurity - Content Delivery | | AI Milestone | $11.6B Anthropic commitment, potentially expanding by another $9B | Help others discover this reporting. Editorial responsibility Jim Carroll. Editor & Publisher Every article published by Converge Digest is researched, curated, fact-checked and editorially reviewed by Jim Carroll, Editor & Publisher. AI-assisted drafting may be used to accelerate production, but all content is reviewed, refined and approved prior to publication. Builders & Visionaries The people who opened the doors to the networks Converge Digest run today. Which of these co-founded Anthropic? On this day. September 25 From 25 years of the Converge Digest archive.

Anthropic inks US$12bn deal with Akamai. Sat, sep 26, 2026 page9. * Anthropic inks US$12bn deal with Akamai LONG-TERM BET: Expanding an earlier agreement, the AI developer committed to a seven-year deal, which Akamai said would drive US$5.5bn in capital spending * Bloomberg * * Add TT as Preferred Source Anthropic PBC has signed an US$11.6 billion, seven-year contract with Akamai Technologies Inc for computing power, adding to the AI developer's growing list of data center deals. Akamai is to supply Anthropic access to central processing units, or CPUs, a type of generalist chip that has seen renewed demand in data centers to help support AI services. Akamai has also issued a warrant that gives Anthropic the right to buy Series B shares for US$111.33 each that converts into 7.7 million shares of common stock. The agreement builds on a previous US$1.8 billion computing deal that the two companies struck earlier this year. Anthropic has seen demand for its Claude software soar in recent months with customers flocking to its tools to streamline the process of coding and other tasks. The AI developer has been on a buying spree for the computing necessary to meet that growing demand, tapping companies from Alphabet Inc's Google to Elon Musk's SpaceX for access to chips. An Anthropic logo is displayed at the Moscone Center during the Dreamforce technology summit in San Francisco, California, on Sept. 17. Photo: Reuters Akamai generates the vast majority of sales from its content delivery and cybersecurity services, but the company, in search of more growth opportunities, has been rapidly expanding into the computing space. The contract with Anthropic represents the largest deal in the firm's history, and the company estimated that its capital spending tied to the Anthropic agreement alone will total about US$5.5 billion - more than six times what it spent in all of last year. Shares of Akamai jumped 17 percent in late trading on Thursday to US$129.60 at about 4:10pm New York time. Akamai's cloud business is "growing obviously extremely fast," Akamai chief executive officer Tom Leighton said in an interview. At this rate, the company's revenue associated with cloud contracts could eclipse sales from its other segments "fairly soon," he said. "We're not looking necessarily at a long time frame for that to happen." Akamai said a part of the warrant issued to Anthropic, representing about 2 percent of Akamai's common stock, vests with the computing agreement, which is expected to begin in the second half of next year. The rest is scheduled to come available over the course of the seven-year deal. Some Wall Street investors have raised concerns about so-called circular AI deals in which cloud, hardware and AI companies that buy one another's products are also directly investing in one another, saying the pacts make it more difficult to quantify real demand for AI. This is the first time Akamai has agreed to such a warrant as part of a cloud deal with a customer, Leighton said. "It's a serious step, but I think in this case it made sense to do," he said. "It helps bring the companies together." Akamai expects revenue from the Anthropic business to total about US$150 million to US$300 million next year. "By the time we're through to 2028, it'll be an annual run rate of about US$1.7 billion," Leighton said. The bulk of capital spending that Akamai is planning to fulfill the Anthropic contract will go toward hardware such as servers, chips and networking gear, and most of it will occur next year, Leighton said. While acknowledging that it is a "big step up in capex" for the company, he said the returns are strong and the company is discussing even more business with "all the major players," including the largest data center operators known as hyperscalers and big enterprises. * Most Popular * 1 Buyers snap up fruit after farmer refuses China sales * 2 Taiwanese win gold, silver and bronze in Japan * 3 Vessel donation to Manila would not harm fishers: OAC * 4 Allies send joint letter to UN in support of Taiwan * 5 Taiwan-built sub could reach navy next month