Anthropic Signs $11.6 Billion Cloud Deal With Akamai, With Option to Reach $20 Billion
The seven-year agreement is conditional on delivery and availability targets, with Akamai expecting no 2026 revenue. It plans $5.5 billion in capacity spending for CPU infrastructure, while Anthropic receives a warrant convertible into up to 7.7 million shares.
Anthropic has committed $11.6 billion over seven years to Akamai’s cloud infrastructure, in a deal announced Thursday, September 25, 2026, that is the largest contract in Akamai’s history. The agreement is more than six times the size of a $1.8 billion deal between the two companies reported in May.
The contract is not unconditional. According to Akamai’s securities filing, it depends on Akamai meeting certain delivery and service-availability requirements, and either party can exit under specific conditions. Akamai does not expect to recognize revenue from the deal in 2026, with executives projecting $150 million to $300 million in the second half of 2027 and an annual revenue pace of approximately $1.7 billion by the end of 2028. To build the required capacity, Akamai expects to spend about $5.5 billion, and is adding $1.7 billion to this year’s capital spending to purchase components such as memory in advance.
The deal focuses on CPU-based infrastructure — general-purpose chips used for tasks like running code — reflecting growing demand as AI agents take on more work. Akamai did not specify what Anthropic will use the CPUs for.
As part of the arrangement, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant for nonvoting preferred stock convertible into up to 7.7 million common shares, representing roughly 5% of outstanding stock, at $111.33 per share. Approximately 2% vests upon Anthropic’s first payment, with the remainder unlocking at roughly 1% for every additional $3 billion Anthropic spends. This structure could expand the total commitment by up to $9 billion, bringing it to approximately $20 billion.
The warrant arrangement reverses a more common pattern in AI deals, in which suppliers invest directly in the AI companies buying their products. Here, the supplier is giving its customer a potential equity stake that grows with spending. It is the first time Akamai has attached a warrant to a cloud deal. A similar structure was used by AMD with OpenAI.
Akamai shares rose as much as 17% in after-hours trading following the announcement, according to The Wall Street Journal.