Anthropic Signs $11.6B Akamai Cloud Deal With Potential to Reach $20B

Anthropic will spend $11.6 billion over seven years on Akamai’s cloud infrastructure under a major agreement that could ultimately grow to about $20 billion.

Akamai announced the agreement Thursday, making it the largest contract in the company’s history. The commitment is more than six times the size of the $1.8 billion computing agreement between the companies that Bloomberg reported in May.

The agreement is not unconditional. According to Akamai’s securities filing, Anthropic’s commitment depends on Akamai meeting specified delivery and service-availability requirements, while either company can terminate the deal under certain circumstances.

Anthropic makes a major bet on CPU infrastructure

The deal adds to Anthropic’s rapidly growing spending on computing infrastructure, but it also highlights demand for CPUs rather than only the GPUs that dominate discussion around AI infrastructure. CPU demand has increased as AI agents take on more computing tasks, although Akamai has not disclosed exactly how Anthropic plans to use the capacity.

Akamai does not expect revenue from the agreement this year. During a Thursday investor call, executives projected $150 million to $300 million in revenue during 2027, beginning in the second half, with the contract reaching an annual revenue pace of about $1.7 billion by the end of 2028.

To provide the necessary capacity, Akamai expects to spend about $5.5 billion. It is also adding roughly $1.7 billion to this year’s capital expenditures to buy components, including memory, in advance.

A warrant could give Anthropic a 5% Akamai stake

As part of the agreement, Akamai granted Anthropic a warrant for nonvoting preferred stock convertible into 7.7 million common shares, representing as much as roughly 5% of Akamai’s outstanding stock, at $111.33 per share.

About 2% is expected to vest after Anthropic makes its first payment. Additional spending can unlock more: each extra $3 billion Anthropic commits to Akamai cloud services would vest roughly another 1%, allowing the overall agreement to increase by as much as $9 billion.

It is the first time Akamai has attached a warrant to a cloud agreement, and Bloomberg reported that the contract is the largest in Akamai’s history.

The structure reverses a more common pattern in AI infrastructure deals involving investments between suppliers and their customers. Here, Akamai is giving Anthropic the potential to own part of the cloud provider, with that stake increasing as Anthropic spends more.

Anthropic continues expanding its compute relationships

Anthropic already has major infrastructure and investment relationships with several technology companies. Microsoft and Nvidia previously announced strategic partnerships involving Anthropic, while AMD has an agreement to deploy up to 2 gigawatts of Instinct MI450-series GPUs for the company.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has acknowledged these interconnected financing and infrastructure arrangements while arguing that his company does not participate at the same scale as some competitors, comments he made in a New York Times interview last December.

Investors responded positively to the Akamai deal. The company’s shares climbed as much as 17% in after-hours trading Thursday, according to The Wall Street Journal.