Key points
- Anthropic commits $11.6 billion to Akamai cloud capacity
- Up to $9 billion more could follow
- Warrant vesting depends on a first payment and further commitments
- Akamai is buying memory ahead of the build
Anthropic has committed about $11.6 billion to cloud computing services from Akamai Technologies (AKAM) under two seven-year project plans. Each plan's term begins when its service starts, according to Akamai's 8-K filing. The deal covers dedicated capacity for CPU workloads and could expand by another $9 billion. Akamai also issued Anthropic a warrant that vests in stages and could let Anthropic buy the equivalent of about 5% of Akamai's common stock.
Akamai shares rose 16.8% to $128.99 in after-hours trading as of 4:34 p.m. Eastern on Thursday. They had closed the regular session down 6.8% at $110.40.
With the additional commitments, the agreement's potential value would reach approximately $20.6 billion. Akamai described it as an opportunity worth about $20 billion in its announcement after the close.
What does Anthropic get?
Akamai will provide dedicated computing capacity and managed support for Anthropic's growing CPU workloads. The companies signed their master services agreement on May 5 and the two project plans on September 18.
The commitment comes with conditions. Anthropic's payments depend on Akamai meeting "certain delivery and service availability requirements." A material outage can give Anthropic the right to end an affected project plan, subject to conditions. Anthropic can terminate the broader agreement if Akamai commits a material breach that goes unremedied or a direct competitor of Anthropic takes control of Akamai.
The filing provides details Anthropic has not published for most of its compute contracts, according to our review of its $517 billion in potential commitments. Akamai disclosed this agreement as material to its business.
How does the warrant work?
The warrant covers 387,051 shares of a new non-voting preferred stock. Each share converts into 20 shares of Akamai common stock, or 7,741,020 common shares in total. The exercise price is $2,226.60 per preferred share, equivalent to $111.33 per underlying common share, and must be paid in cash. That is slightly above Thursday's $110.40 close. The $111.33 common-share equivalent matches Akamai's volume-weighted average price over the 30 trading days before September 18.
The warrant vests in four parts. The first 40%, about 2% of Akamai, vests with Anthropic's first payment under one of the two new project plans. Each of the remaining three parts, 20% apiece, vests when Anthropic commits another $3 billion. Anthropic has until September 2033 to exercise the vested portions.
Exercising the full warrant would cost Anthropic about $862 million, by our arithmetic. Some other customer warrants have used nominal prices. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) gave Meta and OpenAI warrants at a penny a share.
The preferred shares carry no vote except where Delaware law requires one. They convert into common stock only if Anthropic transfers them to someone outside Anthropic and its wholly owned subsidiaries.
What will Akamai spend?
Akamai estimates about $5.5 billion in capital spending related to the initial commitment and expects its 2026 capital spending to increase by about $1.7 billion to secure and pre-purchase supply chain components, including memory. On Thursday, the company also authorized contract manufacturer Jabil (JBL) to procure about $1.7 billion of memory components, according to the 8-K. The disclosures do not explicitly reconcile these figures, so they should not be added together. Akamai said the deal will not change its 2026 revenue guidance.
Akamai pays the supplier invoices when Jabil receives the parts. Jabil holds them on consignment and buys them back from Akamai at cost as they are used. A day earlier, Akamai signed a separate agreement for hardware, software, and services from Lenovo. The master agreement has an initial three-year term and stays in force while any statement of work is active. The first statement of work runs seven years.
The Anthropic commitment adds to more than $2.8 billion of multi-year cloud infrastructure commitments across Akamai's customer base announced earlier this year. Akamai will file the full Anthropic agreement with its quarterly report for the period ending September 30.
