Anthropic Signs $11.6 Billion Seven-Year Cloud Deal With Akamai, With Option to Expand to $20 Billion

Anthropic has committed $11.6 billion over seven years to use Akamai Technologies infrastructure for growing AI compute workloads, in what Akamai described as a dramatic expansion of the two companies' existing relationship. The deal includes an option to expand by an additional $9 billion, bringing the potential total commitment to roughly $20 billion. The announcement sent Akamai shares surging on September 24.

The agreement dwarfs a prior seven-year, $1.8 billion cloud infrastructure contract the two companies signed in May 2026, which had itself been the largest deal in Akamai's history at the time. As part of the new arrangement, Anthropic received warrants to purchase up to 7.7 million shares, representing up to 5% of Akamai's common stock outstanding, at a strike price of $111.33 per share. Roughly 2% of that warrant is expected to vest with the initial commitment, with the remaining 3% tied to additional cloud spending.

Akamai estimates capital expenditures tied to the initial $11.6 billion commitment at approximately $5.5 billion, including an incremental $1.7 billion in 2026 capex to secure supply chain components such as memory. The company authorized manufacturer Jabil to procure that $1.7 billion in memory components, with Jabil holding the inventory on consignment and selling it back to Akamai at cost as it is consumed. Akamai also signed a new hardware, software and services agreement with Lenovo under a three-year master term and a related seven-year statement of work. Despite the significant capital commitment, Akamai said it expects no impact to its 2026 revenue guidance.