Anthropic signs $11.6 billion, 7-year deal with Akamai
Akamai signed the largest deal in its history with Anthropic. The contract covers CPU workloads rather than GPUs.
The deal
On September 24 Akamai announced a seven-year, $11.6 billion commitment from Anthropic. It covers Anthropic's CPU workloads on Akamai Cloud and is the largest agreement in Akamai's history. Anthropic also has an option to commit another $9 billion, which would take the total to about $20 billion.
Why CPUs
Most AI cloud contracts are built around GPU capacity. This one centres on CPUs, the chips that handle general computing. As agents call tools, run code and work on the web, demand for general-purpose compute grows too.
Shares and warrant
Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant for 7.7 million shares, about 5% of its common stock, at an exercise price of $111.33. About 2% vests under the initial commitment and the rest in 1% steps with each additional $3 billion commitment. Akamai shares jumped more than 20% in after-hours trading on the news.