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Akamai gives Anthropic up to 5 percent equity stake in $11.6 billion cloud deal

· by Pondero Newsdesk

The short version

Akamai attached a warrant on its own stock to a seven-year, $11.6 billion Anthropic cloud contract, reversing the usual pattern where chip and cloud suppliers invest in the AI labs that buy their capacity.

Akamai gives Anthropic up to 5 percent equity stake in $11.6 billion cloud deal

Akamai said on September 25, 2026 that it will supply Anthropic with $11.6 billion of Akamai Cloud capacity over seven years, and instead of taking equity in Anthropic the way most AI-infrastructure suppliers do, Akamai handed Anthropic a warrant on its own stock worth up to roughly 5 percent of the company, per Akamai's press release.

What

The commitment is more than six times the size of a $1.8 billion Akamai-Anthropic deal that Bloomberg reported in May 2026. It is also contingent: Akamai must meet delivery and service-availability requirements, and either company can end the agreement under specified conditions, per Akamai's SEC filing. The capacity covers Anthropic's CPU workloads on Akamai's distributed cloud infrastructure; Akamai did not disclose what Anthropic will run on the chips, TechCrunch reported. Akamai issued the warrant convertible into 7.7 million common shares, or up to about 5 percent of Akamai's outstanding stock, at an exercise price of $111.33 per share, per the press release. About 2 percent vests once Anthropic makes its first payment, and the rest vests in roughly 1 percent increments for every additional $3 billion Anthropic commits, up to a $9 billion expansion option that would push the total deal to about $20 billion.

Akamai expects no revenue from the deal in 2026. Executives guided to $150 million to $300 million in 2027 revenue starting in the second half, ramping to an annualized pace of about $1.7 billion by the end of 2028, per an investor call TechCrunch covered. Building the capacity will cost Akamai about $5.5 billion, and the company is adding roughly $1.7 billion to its 2026 capital budget to pre-buy components including memory, per the press release.

The warrant flips the usual chip-and-cloud investment pattern

In the AI-infrastructure deals that have piled up since 2025, chipmakers and cloud providers typically invest directly in the labs that buy their capacity, tying warrants or equity to future purchase volume. Akamai reversed the direction: it is Akamai's own stock, not Anthropic's, changing hands, so Akamai's upside now grows in step with how much Anthropic spends. TechCrunch called it the first time Akamai has attached a warrant to any cloud contract. Because the warrant only vests as Anthropic's payments cross set thresholds, Anthropic has a built-in incentive to keep expanding the contract toward the full $20 billion rather than shop the workload elsewhere once the initial term ends. Akamai shares rose as much as 17 percent in after-hours trading following the announcement, TechCrunch reported, citing The Wall Street Journal.

What to watch next

Whether Anthropic exercises the $9 billion expansion option, vesting the remaining roughly 3 percent of the warrant and pushing the deal past $20 billion, will show how far Akamai's Anthropic bet ultimately goes, per Akamai's press release. Akamai's 2027 revenue guidance is the nearer-term checkpoint: the promised $150 million to $300 million should start showing up in Akamai's quarterly reports once the first payments land.

Sources