Akamai is taking on the early financial risk of its expanded $11.6 billion cloud agreement with Anthropic. It plans to spend $5.5 billion building capacity, including memory it must pay for when its hardware assembler receives the parts, before the new capacity earns revenue.
The deal gives Anthropic dedicated computing capacity and a conditional right to buy up to roughly 5% of Akamai. Akamai is making that commitment while revenue from its delivery-related business is falling and its company-wide operating margin has narrowed.
Akamai and Anthropic signed the expanded project plans on September 18, 2026, under a cloud services agreement they had made in May. Akamai disclosed the new terms on September 24. The $11.6 billion is what Anthropic has committed to pay over the plans’ seven-year terms, subject to Akamai delivering available service and to specified termination rights. Each term begins when its service starts, not when the plans were signed.
Akamai pays for the build
Akamai estimates $5.5 billion in total capital expenditure for the Anthropic commitment. That is roughly 47 cents of planned capital spending for each dollar of the announced $11.6 billion commitment, calculated from Akamai’s estimates.
The near-term change is substantial on its own. Akamai says it is adding about $1.7 billion to its 2026 capital-spending plan to secure components and other supplies. Its September 24 filing shows how one part of that purchase works: Akamai authorized manufacturer Jabil to buy approximately $1.7 billion of memory and agreed to pay the corresponding supplier invoices when Jabil receives the parts.
Jabil will hold unused components for Akamai and repurchase them at cost as they are used. The arrangement also sets out terms for carrying or disposing of unused inventory. In practical terms, Akamai pays when the memory arrives, not when Anthropic begins using the finished computing capacity.
The filings do not say how much the two $1.7 billion figures overlap. Akamai also signed a seven-year hardware, software and services agreement with Lenovo on September 23, but disclosed no price for it.
Akamai reported $4.616 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at June 30, 2026. The disclosed record does not show its liquidity after these agreements or how it will finance the full build-out.
The business Akamai is building on
Akamai’s June-quarter results show why a large cloud customer is attractive, and why the spending is consequential. Revenue from delivery and other cloud applications, a combined category rather than delivery alone, fell 6% from $420.117 million a year earlier to $395.927 million. Akamai’s quarterly filing attributes the decline chiefly to lower prices on delivery contract renewals.
Company-wide profit also tightened. Operating income under standard accounting rules fell from $151.461 million to $80.284 million, while the company-wide operating margin dropped from 15% to 7%.
Other lines grew. In the same quarter, cloud infrastructure revenue rose 39% to $99.319 million, while security revenue rose 10% to $604.436 million. Total revenue reached $1.100 billion, up 5%. Akamai had also reported more than $2.8 billion in earlier 2026 multi-year cloud infrastructure commitments across customers, including more than $600 million over four years from a new robotics customer.
The agreement covers computing workloads run on central processors. It sits alongside Anthropic’s discussions about custom AI chips, another route to securing computing capacity. Akamai has not disclosed Anthropic-specific revenue earned under the expanded plans or a profit margin for the contract.
Anthropic’s payment and purchase right
Akamai says the announcement does not change its 2026 revenue guidance. Cristian Dina of The Next Web, citing Bloomberg reporter Lynn Doan and Akamai co-founder and CEO Dr. Tom Leighton, reports an expected service start in the second half of 2027. Leighton forecasts $150 million to $300 million in Anthropic revenue in 2027 and an annual revenue pace of about $1.7 billion by 2028.
Anthropic’s other benefit is a warrant: a right, subject to conditions, to buy non-voting shares convertible into approximately 5% of Akamai’s common stock. A portion representing about 2% is expected to become exercisable in connection with the announced commitment. The remaining roughly 3% depends on further purchases under an expansion that could add $9 billion; that expansion is potential business, not part of the existing $11.6 billion commitment.
Leighton described the warrant to Bloomberg, as reported by The Next Web, this way:
“It helps bring the companies together.”
It also makes the division of risk unusually clear. Anthropic’s purchase right grows if it buys more service; Akamai must secure the components to make the first announced commitment possible.
Further Reading
- Akamai Form 8-K, filed September 24, 2026, Contract conditions and the Jabil and Lenovo arrangements.
- Akamai September 24, 2026 transaction announcement, Announced commitment, planned spending and warrant terms.
- Akamai-Anthropic warrant agreement, Exhibit 4.1, Executed terms of Anthropic’s conditional purchase right.
- Akamai Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, Operating results and delivery pricing pressure.
- Akamai second-quarter 2026 financial results, Revenue by business line, cash and earlier cloud commitments.
- Anthropic signs $11.6bn Akamai cloud deal and gets warrant for 5% of Akamai, Independent report carrying Bloomberg-attributed timing and revenue forecasts.