Akamai signs US$11.6B Anthropic cloud deal with US$5.5B buildout
The seven-year CPU services agreement carries delivery conditions, a preferred-share warrant and a projected late 2027 service start.
Julian Okafor
A US$11.6 billion cloud commitment signed Sept. 18 puts a major AI infrastructure buildout on a delivery clock. Akamai Technologies, Inc. NASDAQAKAM, the Cambridge, Massachusetts cloud and security supplier, said in its Sept. 24 release that privately held AI developer Anthropic committed to buy CPU cloud services over seven years.
At 2:38 p.m. EDT Friday, shares of Akamai NASDAQAKAM traded at US$116.27, up 5.31 per cent. The company said the agreement would not change its 2026 revenue guidance, even as it planned about US$1.7 billion of additional capital spending in 2026 to secure equipment, including memory.
The companies signed two project plans on Sept. 18 under a master services agreement dated May 5, according to Akamai's Form 8-K. The US$11.6 billion payment commitment depends on delivery and service availability and is subject to contract termination provisions. Akamai estimates about US$5.5 billion of capital expenditures related to the announced commitment.
The company's Sept. 24 investor presentation projects that service will start in late second quarter 2027. It forecasts US$150 million to US$300 million of revenue in 2027, with the full annual run rate reached by the end of 2028. The planned first payment also governs when the initial warrant tranche vests.
First Services Are Scheduled For Late Second Quarter 2027
"Subject to any termination described below and satisfaction of certain delivery and service availability requirements, Anthropic has committed to pay the Company approximately $11.6 billion in the aggregate under the Project Plans," Akamai said in its Form 8-K.
The filing says each new project plan has a seven-year initial term that begins on its own service start date. Anthropic may terminate a plan after a material outage under stated conditions, and the master agreement has rights tied to uncured breach and other specified events. The agreement's full terms are due as an exhibit to Akamai's Form 10-Q for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2026.
The presentation puts the spending ahead of most of the sales. It allocates about US$1.7 billion of capital expenditure to the fourth quarter of 2026 and about US$3.1 billion to 2027. Akamai expects the contract to reach roughly US$1.7 billion in annual revenue after the 2028 ramp, but that is a company projection, not revenue already earned.
Anthropic Warrant Can Reach About Five Per Cent
Akamai also issued Anthropic a warrant for non-voting preferred stock convertible, under specified transfer conditions, into as many as 7,741,020 common shares. Akamai's Form 8-K covering the Sept. 18 agreement values the exercise price at US$111.33 per common-share equivalent. Akamai described the maximum as roughly five per cent of shares outstanding, making the customer an eventual potential shareholder as well as a buyer of cloud capacity.
The first 40 per cent of warrant shares vest on Anthropic's first payment under the third project plan, subject to conditions, the filing says. Three further tranches of 20 per cent each require an additional US$3 billion of committed contract value apiece. Akamai calls that expansion as much as US$9 billion, taking the possible relationship to about US$20 billion; those further purchases require mutually agreed terms.
Existing Cloud Commitments Add To The Power Requirement
Akamai said it had announced more than US$2.8 billion of other multiyear Cloud Infrastructure Services commitments earlier in 2026. Its presentation groups those contracts with Anthropic's at about US$14.4 billion in total contract value and estimates 95 to 105 megawatts of power demand for the group. That megawatt estimate covers the earlier contracts as well as Anthropic's, so it is not a measure of this customer's load alone.
IREN Limited NASDAQIREN, a GPU-cloud operator building US data centres, put its own five-year AI-cloud agreement at about US$9.7 billion in a Nov. 3, 2025 release. IREN said the GPU clusters would provide 200 megawatts of critical IT load across four deployment phases through 2026. Akamai's newly disclosed demand is for CPU workloads, while its power figure includes multiple customers.
The buildout also follows Mugglehead's Sept. 24 coverage of a Qatar data-centre construction award. The builder's Sept. 24 release put that turnkey contract above QAR500 million across two construction phases.
Read more: Estithmar Holding wins QAR500M-plus MEEZA data-centre contract
Akamai's next document test is its Form 10-Q for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2026, when it says it will file the Anthropic master agreement. Its presentation projects roughly US$1.7 billion in fourth-quarter 2026 capital expenditures to secure critical supply chain components, including memory, ahead of first services planned for late second quarter 2027.
