Akamai shares rise after $11.6 billion Anthropic computing commitment

Akamai Technologies said Sept. 24 it secured an Akamai Anthropic computing deal worth $11.6 billion in contractual commitments over seven years, providing cloud infrastructure and software for Anthropic’s growing CPU workloads. SiliconANGLE reported that Akamai shares gained more than 20% in after-hours trading following the announcement.

The commitment is large relative to Akamai’s recently disclosed cloud contracts, but it is not $11.6 billion of immediate revenue. Akamai said the agreement does not change its 2026 revenue guidance, and it did not disclose the timing of revenue recognition over the seven-year term.

What are the terms of Akamai’s Anthropic computing deal?

Anthropic, the AI developer, will use Akamai Cloud’s distributed infrastructure and software to support CPU-demand growth, according to Akamai. The company describes that infrastructure as spanning thousands of points of presence.

The announced $11.6 billion commitment can expand by as much as $9 billion, bringing the potential relationship to about $20 billion. That additional amount is contingent rather than committed at announcement. On a straight-line comparison, the initial commitment equals roughly $1.66 billion a year over seven years, though Akamai gave no revenue schedule or other basis to treat that figure as annual revenue.

Akamai estimated that the initial commitment will require about $5.5 billion in capital expenditures. It also expects to raise 2026 capital spending by about $1.7 billion to secure and pre-purchase supply-chain components, including memory. Those are company estimates and forward-looking statements, rather than reported spending.

How does Anthropic’s warrant in Akamai work?

As part of the arrangement, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant to buy non-voting convertible Series B preferred stock. The warrant covers 7.7 million shares of common stock on an as-converted basis, equivalent to as much as roughly 5% of Akamai’s common stock outstanding, at an exercise price of $111.33 a share.

• About 2% of Akamai’s common stock is expected to vest with the $11.6 billion commitment.
• The remaining roughly 3% can vest if Anthropic makes additional commitments of up to $9 billion during the warrant’s seven-year term.
• Each additional $3 billion commitment to cloud services, on mutually agreed terms, would vest roughly another 1%.

The warrant therefore links further potential dilution to an expansion of the commercial relationship. Akamai cautioned in its announcement that future results and expected benefits from the transaction may differ from its forecasts.

The deal adds to more than $2.8 billion in multiyear Cloud Infrastructure Services commitments that Akamai said it had announced across its customer base earlier in 2026. Separately, SiliconANGLE reported that Akamai disclosed a $1.8 billion, seven-year commitment from an unnamed frontier-model company in May; the publication said Bloomberg subsequently identified Anthropic as that customer, citing a person with direct knowledge.

For Akamai, the disclosure puts a concrete contract value and capital requirement behind its cloud offering. The company has disclosed neither a schedule for the capacity rollout nor the timing of revenue recognition under the seven-year commitment.

This story draws on original reporting from SiliconANGLE.