Anthropic signs $11.6 billion cloud deal with Akamai to power distributed CPU Compute
Frontier AI lab Anthropic has entered into an $11.6 billion, seven-year agreement with content delivery and cloud computing provider Akamai Technologies. The contract, the largest in Akamai’s history, is designed to scale distributed central processing unit (CPU) capacity for Anthropic’s Claude software ecosystem.
The deal includes an expansion clause that could allow Anthropic to commit up to an additional $9 billion, bringing the total potential value to approximately $20 billion over seven years.
CPU Infrastructure at the Edge and Equity Warrant Incentives
Unlike typical AI cloud contracts focused on GPU cluster training, the partnership leverages Akamai Cloud’s global, distributed edge network to handle high-volume CPU workloads. The infrastructure will support inferencing, data preprocessing, and agentic task execution closer to end users.
As part of the commercial arrangement, Akamai issued Anthropic equity warrants to purchase up to 7.7 million shares of non-voting convertible Series B preferred stock at an exercise price of $111.33 per share:
Initial Vesting: Warrants representing approximately 2% of Akamai’s common stock will vest when cloud operations begin in the second half of 2027.
Expansion Vesting: The remaining 3% will vest incrementally in 1% blocks for every additional $3 billion in cloud capacity purchased.
Market Reaction: Akamai’s stock surged over 20% in extended trading following the disclosure.
Akamai CEO Tom Leighton characterized the equity warrant, the first in the company's history for a cloud customer, as a strategic step to align long-term interests between the infrastructure provider and the AI lab.
Supply Chain Investments and Capital Expenditure Surge
To fulfill the initial $11.6 billion commitment, Akamai estimates it will spend roughly $5.5 billion in total capital expenditures. The company plans to increase its 2026 capital spending by $1.7 billion to pre-purchase critical hardware, memory, and server components ahead of the mid-2027 operational launch.
Akamai projects the Anthropic business will generate between $150 million and $300 million in revenue in 2027, scaling to an annual revenue run rate of $1.7 billion by 2028.
Rapid Escalation in Global Compute Commitments
The Akamai contract adds to a series of massive infrastructure deals executed by Anthropic as it races to secure capacity for enterprise Claude deployments. The agreement follows a $45 billion compute commitment with UK-based neocloud Nscale, bringing Anthropic's multi-year compute commitments past $500 billion across diverse cloud and hardware partners.
