Akamai Signs Record $11.6 Billion Cloud Deal With Anthropic and Grants Warrant for Up to 5% Stake

On September 24, 2026, Akamai Technologies announced an $11.6 billion cloud services agreement with Anthropic that runs for seven years and is the largest contract in the company's nearly 30 year history. The deal covers CPU workloads on Akamai Cloud, the distributed computing platform Akamai has been building alongside its long established content delivery business. Reuters reported on September 24 that Akamai also issued Anthropic a warrant that could give the AI lab up to a 5% stake in the cloud company, sending Akamai shares up 22% in extended trading.

The agreement is not simply a purchase order. Akamai describes a contractual commitment of $11.6 billion over seven years, with an option for Anthropic to commit an additional $9 billion, taking the total potential value to about $20 billion. It adds to more than $2.8 billion in multi year Cloud Infrastructure Services commitments Akamai had already announced across its customer base earlier in 2026, and it extends an aggressive computing build out by Anthropic, the AI developer led by chief executive Dario Amodei.

Anthropic has been signing multibillion dollar infrastructure deals throughout the year. Reuters reported last month that the company agreed to spend $45 billion to rent AI cloud computing power from Nscale's West Virginia data center campus. TechCrunch reported on September 25 that the Akamai commitment is more than six times the size of a $1.8 billion deal between the two companies that Bloomberg reported in May.

What makes the contract unusual is the direction of the investment. Most large AI infrastructure deals have followed a circular pattern in which a supplier invests directly in the AI lab that buys its products. Here, the supplier is giving its customer a potential stake, and that stake grows as the customer spends more with the supplier. Akamai is led by co-founder and chief executive Tom Leighton, who said in the announcement that Anthropic is advancing the AI revolution and that the company is thrilled Anthropic chose Akamai's capabilities for building and operating AI infrastructure at scale.

Key Facts

Under the seven year contract, Anthropic has committed $11.6 billion for Akamai Cloud infrastructure and software to support its accelerating CPU workload demands, and it holds an option to commit another $9 billion, taking the total potential value to about $20 billion. Each additional $3 billion Anthropic commits to Akamai's cloud services unlocks roughly another 1% of Akamai's common stock outstanding, according to Akamai's announcement and a TechCrunch report published on September 25.

The warrant covers non-voting convertible Series B preferred stock representing 7.7 million shares of Akamai common stock on an as-converted basis, or up to approximately 5% of Akamai's common stock outstanding, at an exercise price of $111.33 per share. About 2% is expected to vest with the $11.6 billion commitment, while the remaining approximately 3% would vest as the commitment expands by up to an additional $9 billion within the seven year term. TechCrunch reported on September 25 that this is the first time Akamai has attached a warrant to a cloud deal.

Akamai estimates total capital expenditures related to the initial commitment at about $5.5 billion. The company expects no impact to its 2026 revenue guidance and an increase of approximately $1.7 billion in 2026 capital spending to secure and pre-purchase critical supply chain components, including memory. Separately, Akamai authorized electronics firm Jabil to purchase about $1.7 billion worth of memory components under an existing services agreement.

Revenue will arrive slowly. TechCrunch reported on September 25 that executives said on an investor call that they expect $150 million to $300 million in 2027, starting in the second half of the year, with revenue reaching an annual pace of about $1.7 billion by the end of 2028. VentureBurn reported on September 25 that the commitment depends on Akamai meeting certain delivery and service availability requirements, and that either company can end the agreement under certain conditions.

The market reaction was immediate. Reuters reported on September 24 that Akamai shares rose 22% in extended trading. The Wall Street Journal reported that the stock rose as much as 17% in after-hours trading on Thursday, and VentureBurn reported that shares traded up to $133.71 in premarket trading after jumping more than 20% in after-hours trading. VentureBurn also reported that Akamai's year to date signed contract value reached about $14.4 billion, that Morgan Stanley estimates operating margins on the deal at around 30%, and that Akamai holds $4.6 billion in cash and $1 billion in credit lines.

Analysis

The headline number is enormous for Akamai, a company whose annual revenue has historically been measured in the low billions rather than tens of billions, but the structure of the deal matters more than its size. What this really means is that Akamai has converted a customer relationship into something closer to an equity partnership, accepting dilution risk in exchange for a long duration revenue stream that it must build with its own capital. Akamai will spend roughly $5.5 billion to construct capacity that produces little revenue until the second half of 2027, and Anthropic's commitment is contingent on Akamai meeting delivery and service availability requirements.

The warrant design is the most interesting part. Because approximately 2% of the stock vests with the initial commitment and each additional $3 billion of spending unlocks about 1%, Anthropic's ownership of Akamai rises in step with its consumption. That aligns the two companies for the full seven years in a way a conventional discount or rebate would not. It also means Akamai's shareholders are handing over up to about 5% of the company at $111.33 per share. Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne told Reuters that the potential stake can be seen as a vote of confidence in the durability of AI driven cloud demand, while noting growing concerns about potential adverse consequences of agentic AI.

The bigger picture here is that the CPU layer of AI infrastructure is being repriced. Almost every major AI infrastructure story of the past two years has revolved around GPUs, the accelerators that dominate model training. Anthropic's commitment is explicitly for CPUs, the general purpose chips that handle work such as running code and browsing the web, and whose demand has grown as AI agents take on more tasks. VentureBurn reported on September 25 that Akamai's network spans thousands of global locations and more than 4,400 edge points of presence, that CPUs use less power than GPUs, and that Morgan Stanley estimates operating margins around 30%.

There is also a supply chain read. The roughly $1.7 billion increase in 2026 capital spending, and the authorization for Jabil to buy about $1.7 billion of memory components, show that Akamai is pre-purchasing parts before demand arrives. Cloud capacity commitments are ultimately backed by physical hardware that must be secured months or years ahead of revenue recognition.

Why It Matters

For Akamai, the deal validates a strategic pivot away from a mature content delivery business toward cloud computing at the edge. The company says the agreement will not change its 2026 revenue guidance, which is honest but also a signal that investors are being asked to fund a build out now for returns that begin in 2027 and reach an annual run rate of about $1.7 billion only by the end of 2028. The reception on September 24, with shares up sharply, suggests the market is willing to wait.

For Anthropic, the deal is another step in a compute strategy that spans multiple providers. The AI lab agreed to spend $45 billion with Nscale's West Virginia campus, according to a Reuters report last month, and now $11.6 billion, potentially about $20 billion, with Akamai. Splitting workloads across providers reduces single vendor risk and matches different chips to different jobs, with CPUs for agentic and general purpose work and GPUs for training and heavy inference.

For the wider industry, the warrant structure could become a template. TechCrunch reported on September 25 that the arrangement flips the more common circular pattern in which suppliers invest in the AI labs that buy their products. If compute buyers can obtain equity in their suppliers simply by committing to spend, more deals of this shape are likely, and more suppliers will have to weigh dilution against the certainty of multi year demand.

Next Up

Execution now becomes the story. Akamai must convert roughly $5.5 billion of capital expenditure into capacity that meets the delivery and service availability requirements written into the agreement, while adding about $1.7 billion of 2026 spending to lock in components such as memory. Investors will watch the second half of 2027, when the $150 million to $300 million of expected revenue begins, and the path toward an annual pace of about $1.7 billion by the end of 2028. Any expansion toward the $9 billion option, worth roughly 1% of Akamai's stock for every $3 billion committed, will be read as confirmation that the relationship is deepening.

Anthropic, meanwhile, continues to expand its footprint across cloud and data center providers as it prepares for an IPO. The $111.33 exercise price on the warrant, Akamai's $4.6 billion in cash and $1 billion in credit lines, and the roughly $14.4 billion in contracts Akamai says it has signed year to date form the financial backdrop against which the next phase of the build out will be judged.