Anthropic Strikes $12 Billion AI Computing Deal With Akamai

(Bloomberg) -- Anthropic PBC has signed an $11.6 billion, seven-year contract with Akamai Technologies Inc. for computing power, adding to the AI developer's growing list of data center deals.

Akamai will supply Anthropic access to central processing units, or CPUs, a type of generalist chip that's seen renewed demand in data centers where it's helping support AI services. Akamai has also issued a warrant that gives Anthropic the right to buy Series B shares for $111.33 each that converts into 7.7 million shares of common stock.

The agreement builds on a previous $1.8 billion computing deal that the two companies struck earlier this year. Anthropic has seen demand for its Claude software soar in recent months with customers flocking to its tools to streamline the process of coding and other tasks. The AI developer has been on a buying spree for the computing necessary to meet that growing demand, tapping companies from Alphabet Inc.'s Google to Elon Musk's SpaceX for access to chips.

Akamai generates the vast majority of sales from its content delivery and cybersecurity services. But the company, in search of more growth opportunities, has been rapidly expanding into the computing space. The contract with Anthropic represents the largest deal in the cyber firm's history, and the company estimated that its capital spending tied to the Anthropic agreement alone will total about $5.5 billion — more than six times what it spent in all of 2025.

Shares of Akamai jumped 17% in late trading on Thursday to $129.60 at about 4:10 p.m. New York time.

Akamai's cloud business is "growing obviously extremely fast," Akamai Chief Executive Officer Tom Leighton said in an interview. At this rate, the company's revenue associated with cloud contracts may eclipse sales from its other segments "fairly soon," he said. "We're not looking necessarily at a long time frame for that to happen."

Akamai said a part of the warrant issued to Anthropic, representing about 2% of Akamai's common stock, vests with the computing agreement, which is expected to begin in the second half of next year. The rest is scheduled to come available over the course of the seven-year deal.

Some Wall Street investors have raised concerns about so-called circular AI deals in which cloud, hardware and AI companies that buy each other's products are also directly investing in one another, saying the pacts make it more difficult to quantify real demand for AI.