Anthropic strikes $11.6B deal with Akamai for AI computing infrastructure

Akamai Technologies just landed the kind of contract that transforms a company’s identity. The content delivery network veteran announced a $11.6 billion, seven-year commitment with Anthropic, the maker of Claude, to support the AI firm’s growing CPU-based workloads on Akamai’s distributed cloud infrastructure.

The deal includes potential add-on commitments of up to $9 billion, which would push the total contract value to roughly $20 billion.

From CDN to AI backbone

This expanded agreement builds on a relationship that was already turning heads. Back in May 2026, Bloomberg identified Anthropic as the mystery customer behind Akamai’s then-record $1.8 billion cloud infrastructure services deal. When that news broke, Akamai’s stock surged 27% in a single trading session.

To further cement the partnership, Akamai is issuing warrants to Anthropic for up to approximately 5% of its common stock on an as-converted basis, priced at $111.33 per share. The warrants vest in portions tied to the size of Anthropic’s commitments, a structure that essentially turns Anthropic into a stakeholder in Akamai’s success.

Why CPUs, not GPUs

Anthropic’s deal with Akamai specifically targets CPU-based AI workloads. The company has also secured more than $2.8 billion in other multi-year cloud infrastructure commitments announced earlier in 2026, suggesting Anthropic isn’t the only AI firm eyeing Akamai’s distributed approach.

Anthropic’s compute hunger

The Akamai partnership is just one piece of Anthropic’s broader infrastructure strategy. The company has also pursued compute resources from Google and SpaceX, reflecting the sheer volume of processing power required to run one of the world’s leading AI model providers.

Anthropic reported an 80-fold increase in revenue over the past year. Revenue from the initial $1.8 billion Akamai deal is expected to start ramping up in the fourth quarter of 2026, meaning the financial impact of these contracts will begin showing up in earnings reports soon.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.