Akamai Technologies signed an $11.6 billion, seven-year cloud infrastructure deal with Anthropic, with add-ons that could push the total to roughly $20 billion. Akamai is also issuing Anthropic a warrant for up to 5% of its common stock, tied to how much the AI company spends on the contract.
Akamai just landed the kind of contract that reshapes a company's identity. The company announced an $11.6 billion, seven-year commitment to support Anthropic's CPU-based AI workloads on its distributed cloud infrastructure. The deal includes potential add-on commitments that would push the total contract value to roughly $20 billion.
An equity stake tied to spending
The company structured the deal around a warrant for up to approximately 5% of its common stock, built on non-voting convertible Series B Preferred Stock representing roughly 7.7 million shares. The exercise price is set at $111.33 per share. About 2% of Akamai's common stock vests immediately upon the $11.6 billion commitment, while the remaining 3% vests as Anthropic spends up to an additional $9 billion on Akamai's services.
Because the shares are non-voting, Anthropic can benefit from Akamai's stock appreciation without gaining boardroom influence. If Anthropic fully vests and exercises the stake, that works out to roughly $857 million in potential equity value at the exercise price alone — a meaningful equity stake for a single client relationship.
Building on a deal that already moved the stock
The agreement builds on a relationship first revealed in May 2026, when Bloomberg identified Anthropic as the customer behind Akamai's then-record $1.8 billion cloud infrastructure deal. That news sent Akamai's stock up 27% in a single trading session. Revenue from that initial contract is expected to start ramping in the fourth quarter of 2026.
Akamai's annual revenue has historically sat in the low single-digit billions, so a $11.6 billion contract represents a transformational shift for a company long known for content delivery and cybersecurity rather than AI infrastructure.
Anthropic spreads its compute bets
Anthropic's deal with Akamai specifically targets CPU-based workloads, and the company has also secured more than $2.8 billion in other multi-year cloud commitments announced earlier in 2026. It has pursued additional compute from Google and SpaceX, and Amazon Web Services has invested billions directly into Anthropic as part of its own push into AI. Anthropic reported an 80-fold increase in revenue over the past year.
Sources: Crypto Briefing, Crypto Briefing
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