Akamai Lands Record $11.6B Anthropic AI Cloud Deal, Eyes $20B Potential

Akamai Lands Record $11.6B Anthropic AI Cloud Deal, Eyes $20B Potential

Akamai signed a record $11.6 billion, seven-year cloud infrastructure deal with Anthropic , focused on supporting the AI company’s growing CPU workload.

The agreement lifts Akamai’s 2026 year-to-date signed contract value to approximately $14.4 billion.

Revenue from the Anthropic contract is expected to begin in the second half of 2027, reaching an estimated annualized run rate of about $1.7 billion by the end of 2028 .

Akamai plans roughly $5.5 billion in capital expenditures through 2028 to deploy the required infrastructure.

The agreement includes an option for up to $9 billion in additional commitments , potentially bringing its total value to $20 billion.

Anthropic also received warrants representing up to about 5% of Akamai’s outstanding shares, with vesting tied to committed revenue.

Akamai Technologies NASDAQ: AKAM said it has signed an $11.6 billion, seven-year commitment with artificial intelligence company Anthropic to provide cloud infrastructure services supporting Anthropic’s accelerating CPU workload demands.

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Tom Leighton called the agreement the largest contract in Akamai’s history.

The deal uses Akamai Cloud’s distributed AI infrastructure and software, and it follows $2.8 billion in multiyear cloud infrastructure commitments Akamai signed earlier in 2026. Together, those agreements bring the company’s year-to-date signed total contract value to about $14.4 billion, according to Chief Financial Officer Ed McGowan.

Revenue ramp and capital spending McGowan said Akamai does not expect revenue from the Anthropic agreement in 2026. Revenue is expected to begin during the second half of 2027, contributing approximately $150 million to $300 million for the full year.

The company expects revenue to continue ramping through 2028 and to reach an annualized run rate of roughly $1.7 billion by the end of that year. Once fully ramped, the contract’s take-or-pay structure is expected to keep revenue steady through the balance of the agreement, McGowan said.

The revenue guidance incorporates the impact of warrant-related accounting and price escalators that must be straight-lined over the contract’s life.

Akamai expects to spend approximately $5.5 billion in capital expenditures over the next two years to support the $11.6 billion commitment.

The planned spending includes: Approximately $1.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2026 for critical supply-chain components, including memory; About $3.1 billion in 2027; and Approximately $700 million in 2028 to complete capital deployments.McGowan said depreciation will begin when equipment enters service and is expected to be substantially in line with revenue. Akamai has no contractual obligation to refresh or upgrade the equipment during the seven-year agreement. He said a seven-year depreciation assumption would be appropriate for the contract, while noting that Akamai has servers in its network that have operated for longer.

Potential expansion and warrant terms The agreement also provides for a potential additional $9 billion in revenue commitments, which could bring the relationship’s total value to as much as $20 billion over seven years.McGowan said the additional amount is an option for future business rather than a milestone-dependent extension of the initial commitment. Any additional commitments would require further capital expenditures, he said.

As part of the arrangement, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant to purchase up to 7.7 mil...