Anthropic Commits $11.6 Billion to Akamai Cloud, With a Stake Tied to More Purchases

Anthropic has committed to buy $11.6 billion in Akamai cloud services over seven years. The deal gives the AI company capacity for growing CPU workloads and a potential stake in its supplier—but most of that stake depends on purchases Anthropic has not committed to make.

A large order for a specific kind of compute

The announced commitment is for Akamai Cloud infrastructure and software to support Anthropic’s CPU workloads. CPUs are general-purpose processors; the announcement does not describe this contract as a purchase of GPU training capacity. That distinction matters when reading a multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure figure: the companies have identified the kind of workload the deal supports, but not the particular jobs it will run.

Akamai has not specified how much CPU capacity the agreement covers, where it will be deployed or when service will begin. Those missing details limit what the contract’s dollar value tells customers about usable capacity. For now, it establishes the duration and financial size of Anthropic’s order, not a timetable for bringing particular workloads online.

The option to buy more also builds a stake

Anthropic could expand the relationship by up to another $9 billion during the seven-year term, taking the potential total to approximately $20 billion. That extra amount is not part of the initial commitment. Further purchases require terms the companies mutually agree on, so the larger figure describes room to grow rather than an order already placed.

Akamai also issued Anthropic a warrant—a right to buy specified shares—for non-voting preferred stock convertible into 7.7 million common shares. It represents up to approximately 5% of Akamai’s common stock outstanding, with an exercise price of $111.33 per common share. Issuing the warrant does not mean Anthropic already owns that stake.

The portion representing about 2% is expected to vest with the announced commitment. The remaining roughly 3% depends on expanding the deal: each additional $3 billion in cloud-service purchases would vest a portion representing approximately 1%, subject to mutually agreed terms. The structure makes further buying a condition for most of the potential stake, without making those purchases inevitable.

Akamai expects costs before a guidance change

Akamai estimates approximately $5.5 billion in total capital expenditures tied to the initial contract. It also expects to raise its 2026 capital spending by about $1.7 billion to secure and pre-purchase components, including memory. These are Akamai’s spending estimates, not additional amounts Anthropic has agreed to pay.

Despite that planned outlay, Akamai expects no change to its 2026 revenue guidance from the agreement. The contrast is a useful limit on the headline number: a seven-year customer commitment and near-term supplier spending do not translate into an immediate revision to this year’s sales outlook. The companies have yet to say when the contracted capacity will start serving Anthropic.