Anthropic Akamai Cloud Deal: Inside the $11.6 Billion Agreement
The Anthropic Akamai cloud deal will see Anthropic spend **$11.6 billion over seven years** on Akamai’s cloud infrastructure. That figure is more than six times the size of a $1.8 billion agreement between the two companies reported in May.
The commitment is not ironclad. According to Akamai’s securities filing, it depends on Akamai meeting certain delivery and service-availability requirements. Either company can also end the agreement under certain conditions.
Even so, the contract stands as the largest in Akamai’s history and continues Anthropic’s compute-consuming streak. It also represents a bet on a less-hyped corner of AI infrastructure: CPUs.
Why CPUs Are Central to This Agreement
Demand for CPUs — the general-purpose chips that handle work like running code and browsing the web — has grown as AI agents take on more tasks. Akamai did not say what Anthropic will use the chips for.
The CPU focus sets this Anthropic Akamai cloud deal apart from the GPU-heavy narrative that has dominated AI infrastructure news. While GPUs remain central to training and running large models, CPUs handle the everyday processing that keeps agents and applications moving.
When Akamai Expects Revenue
Akamai will not see revenue from the Anthropic Akamai cloud deal this year. On an investor call Thursday, executives said they expect $150 million to $300 million in 2027, starting in the second half.
Revenue is expected to reach an annual pace of about $1.7 billion by the end of 2028.
To build out the capacity, Akamai expects to spend about $5.5 billion**. It is also adding about **$1.7 billion to this year’s capital spending to buy components such as memory in advance.
Warrant Structure Explained
As part of the agreement, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant — essentially the right to buy shares at a set price — for nonvoting preferred stock convertible into 7.7 million common shares. That equals up to about 5% of Akamai’s outstanding stock, at $111.33 a share.
About 2% is expected to vest, or become available to Anthropic, once it makes its first payment under the deal. The rest is tied to Anthropic spending more.
Each additional $3 billion** it commits to Akamai’s cloud services unlocks roughly another **1%**. That means the deal could grow by as much as **$9 billion, to about $20 billion in total.
It is the first time Akamai has attached a warrant to a cloud deal, and the contract is the largest in company history.
How This Flips the Usual AI Deal Pattern
The warrant reverses the more common pattern in circular AI deals, in which suppliers — chipmakers and cloud providers — invest directly in the AI labs that buy their products.
Here, the supplier is instead giving its customer a potential stake, one that grows as Anthropic’s spending with Akamai does. AMD used a similar structure with OpenAI last year, tying warrants to chip-purchase milestones.
Anthropic is no stranger to such arrangements. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and AMD have all invested or agreed to invest in the company while selling it chips or cloud capacity. CEO Dario Amodei said last December that Anthropic does not participate in these deals at the “same scale as some other players.”
Market Reaction and What Comes Next
Akamai shares rose as much as 17% in after-hours trading on Thursday.
The size and structure of the Anthropic Akamai cloud deal signal that AI infrastructure spending continues to expand well beyond the best-known players. For Akamai, the agreement offers a path to meaningful revenue growth tied to AI demand.
For Anthropic, it secures long-term access to CPU capacity as its agents take on more complex work. Whether the full $20 billion potential materializes depends on how much Anthropic ultimately commits — and whether Akamai meets the delivery and availability terms spelled out in the filing.
