Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM) shares surged roughly 26% in early after-hours trading Thursday after the cloud and cybersecurity company announced an $11.6 billion, seven-year agreement with artificial intelligence company Anthropic.
Under the expanded relationship, Anthropic will use Akamai Cloud’s distributed infrastructure and software to support growing CPU computing workloads.
Akamai said the transaction includes the potential for Anthropic to purchase up to an additional $9 billion of cloud services, which would bring the total potential commitment to approximately $20 billion.
Akamai Estimates $5.5 Billion of Related Capital Spending
The scale of the contract will require substantial infrastructure investment. Akamai estimates total capital expenditures associated with the $11.6 billion commitment at approximately $5.5 billion.
For 2026 alone, the company expects the agreement to increase capital expenditures by roughly $1.7 billion as it secures and prepurchases critical supply-chain components, including memory. Akamai said the transaction is not expected to affect its 2026 revenue guidance.
Anthropic Deal Includes Akamai Equity Warrant
The agreement also includes an equity component. Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant to purchase non-voting convertible Series B Preferred Stock representing 7.7 million shares of Akamai common stock on an as-converted basis, or up to approximately 5% of Akamai’s common stock outstanding, at an exercise price of $111.33 per share of common stock.
A portion representing about 2% of Akamai’s outstanding common stock is expected to vest in connection with the newly announced $11.6 billion commitment. The remaining roughly 3% is tied to further expansion of the relationship, with about 1% vesting for each additional $3 billion of cloud-service purchases under agreed terms.
The agreement marks a major expansion of Akamai’s push into AI-related cloud infrastructure. Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Anthropic had signed a $1.8 billion computing agreement with Akamai as demand for AI computing capacity increased.
The new agreement also follows more than $2.8 billion of multi-year Cloud Infrastructure Services commitments that Akamai had previously announced across its customer base during 2026.
Akamai scheduled a conference call for 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time on September 24 to discuss the expanded Anthropic relationship and its financial implications.
