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Akamai Stock Jumps 21% on $11.6 Billion Anthropic AI Deal

Akamai Technologies via GlobeNewswire2 min read5 sources

Why is Akamai stock up today?

Akamai (AKAM) stock jumped 21% to around $134 on Friday after the company signed an $11.6 billion, 7-year cloud computing deal with Anthropic, the largest contract in Akamai's history.

Key numbers

Deal value (initial)$11.6B7-year term, revenue starts H2 2027
Maximum deal potential$20B+$9B optional expansion included
AKAM 1-day stock move+21%largest single-day surge in years
Warrant equity stake~5%of AKAM common stock at $111.33/share
Projected 2028 revenue run rate$1.7B/yrannualized by end of 2028
First revenue windowH2 2027$150M–$300M forecast (per [2])

What happened

Akamai (AKAM) stock jumped 21% to around $134 on Friday after the company signed an $11.6 billion, 7-year cloud computing deal with Anthropic, the largest contract in Akamai's history. Anthropic will use Akamai's network to run the processing workloads that power its AI models; deal revenue is expected to begin in the second half of 2027 and reach a $1.7 billion annual run rate by end of 2028. The deal can expand by an additional $9 billion, bringing total potential value to roughly $20 billion. Akamai also granted Anthropic a warrant to buy up to 5% of AKAM's shares at $111.33 each, vesting in stages.

Why it matters

Akamai has long been seen as a slow-growing internet infrastructure company, and this deal fundamentally changes that picture. The $11.6 billion commitment equals nearly three times Akamai's current annual revenue, effectively turning it into one of the world's most significant AI computing providers. It also signals that companies with large, distributed networks of computing hardware are now highly valuable to AI firms that need to run models at massive scale — meaning more deals like this could follow across the industry.

Who this affects

Marketbullish
High impact
Akamai investors gain sharply; CDN sector peers re-rated higher.
Companybullish
High impact
Akamai pivots from aging CDN to premier AI infrastructure backbone.
Competitorsbearish
Medium impact
Cloudflare faces a newly competitive Akamai for AI workloads.
Industrybullish
Medium impact
AI inference demand accelerates; edge network providers gain leverage.

Akamai vs Cloudflare, Fastly

AkamaiAKAM:NASDAQ~$20.6B+21%+54%—
CloudflareNET:NYSE$123.5B+1%——
FastlyFSLY:NYSE$4.0B-8%+168%—

As of 2026-09-25

How we got here

  1. Anthropic and Akamai sign initial master services agreement.

  2. Project Plans entered; warrant for ~5% AKAM equity issued to Anthropic.

  3. Akamai publicly announces $11.6B, 7-year Anthropic deal.

  4. AKAM surges ~21%; peers Cloudflare and CoreWeave also tick higher.

  5. First Anthropic deal revenue expected; $150M–$300M forecast for H2 2027.

What to watch

  • Akamai Q3 2026 earnings — first capex guidance update; analysts watching $5.5B infrastructure spend.2026-11-10
  • Anthropic $9B expansion option — activation triggers additional warrant vesting.Q1 2027
  • Cloudflare response — NET gained only 1% on deal day; gap vs AKAM may widen.Q4 2026

Educational content only. Not investment advice.

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