Anthropic Bets on CPUs in a $11.6 Billion, Seven-Year Akamai Deal

Introduction

Anthropic’s infrastructure strategy is extending beyond the market’s headline focus on GPUs. Akamai has disclosed a seven-year cloud infrastructure agreement under which Anthropic has committed to spend $11.6 billion. The contract is more than six times the size of the previously reported $1.8 billion arrangement between the companies and is the largest deal in Akamai’s history.

The headline figure is not an unconditional revenue guarantee. According to Akamai’s securities filing, the commitment depends on the company meeting delivery and service-availability requirements. Either party may also terminate the agreement under certain conditions. In other words, the figure represents a long-term purchasing commitment with execution conditions, rather than revenue that has already been fully secured.

Key points

• The deal could become larger. Anthropic’s initial commitment is $11.6 billion. Additional purchases could raise the total value to approximately $20 billion.
• CPUs are central to the arrangement. Akamai has not said exactly which Anthropic workloads will use the capacity. CPUs generally support tasks such as running code and accessing the web, functions that can become more important as AI agents perform longer sequences of actions.
• Revenue will ramp gradually. Akamai does not expect revenue from the agreement this year. Executives forecast $150 million to $300 million in 2027, beginning in the second half, and an annualized revenue pace of about $1.7 billion by the end of 2028.
• Akamai must invest heavily first. The company expects to spend about $5.5 billion building capacity and add roughly $1.7 billion to this year’s capital spending to purchase components, including memory, in advance.
• Equity is tied to spending. Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant for nonvoting preferred stock convertible into 7.7 million common shares at $111.33 per share, representing up to about 5% of outstanding shares. Roughly 2% is expected to vest after Anthropic’s first payment, while each additional $3 billion commitment unlocks approximately another 1%.

Why it matters

The agreement illustrates how AI infrastructure demand is broadening from model training to ongoing execution. AI agents may repeatedly call models, run programs, browse the web, and complete multi-step tasks. Those activities require not only accelerators, but also substantial general-purpose compute, storage, and networking. Akamai has not disclosed Anthropic’s specific workloads, but the deal places CPUs at the center of a major AI infrastructure commitment.

The transaction also reverses a more familiar pattern in the AI supply chain. Chipmakers and cloud providers have often invested in the labs that purchase their products, using capital relationships to reinforce expected demand. Here, the infrastructure provider is offering its customer a potential equity position, with the size of that position increasing as Anthropic spends more. AMD used a comparable purchase-milestone structure with OpenAI, while Anthropic has separately received or agreed to investments connected with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and AMD.

For Akamai, the contract offers a path to a much larger infrastructure business but requires substantial upfront spending. Its revenue outlook depends on successful delivery, service availability, and Anthropic’s continued purchasing. Anthropic, meanwhile, gains a route to reserve large-scale capacity but takes on a long-term financial and supplier commitment. Akamai shares rose as much as 17% in after-hours trading after the announcement, indicating that investors viewed the agreement as a significant change in the company’s growth profile.

Source: TechCrunch AI