Anthropic commits $11.6bn to Akamai's CPUs — and takes a warrant on 5% of the company as it spends
Akamai disclosed one minute after Thursday's close that Anthropic has contracted $11.6 billion over seven years for its distributed cloud, with a path to roughly $20 billion. The customer is being paid in equity: a warrant over 7.7 million shares at $111.33 that vests as the money is spent.
Why it matters: A customer holding a vesting warrant over its own supplier is a new shape for AI compute contracts. If it is copied, the question of who owns the infrastructure layer stops having a clean answer.
The document is Akamai's own, datelined Cambridge, Massachusetts, 24 September, 16:01 Eastern — one minute after the closing bell. It describes $11.6 billion in contractual commitment over seven years from Anthropic for Akamai Cloud's distributed infrastructure, aimed at Anthropic's growing CPU workloads rather than GPU training. The release says the agreement expands the potential relationship by a further $9 billion, taking the total possible commitment to approximately $20 billion, and that it builds on $2.8 billion of multi-year commitments Akamai had already announced.
The distinction that matters is commitment against revenue. The $11.6 billion is what Anthropic has contracted to spend across seven years — an average of roughly $1.66 billion a year — not money Akamai has booked, and Akamai states explicitly that it anticipates no impact to its 2026 revenue guidance. The further $9 billion is an option, not an obligation: it is the ceiling, not the deal. Against the committed portion Akamai expects about $5.5 billion of capital expenditure, including roughly $1.7 billion of incremental 2026 capex to pre-purchase supply-chain components and memory. That last figure is a dated, first-party sighting of the memory squeeze showing up in the accounts of a company that does not make chips.
The equity leg is the genuinely novel part. Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant for non-voting convertible Series B Preferred Stock representing approximately 5% of Akamai's common stock — 7.7 million shares on an as-converted basis — at an exercise price of $111.33 per share. Roughly 2% vests against the current $11.6 billion commitment. The remaining 3% vests only as the relationship expands, at approximately one percentage point for each additional $3 billion of cloud services purchased. The dilution schedule is the spending schedule.
The market's reaction was violent and then faded. Akamai closed Thursday down 6.78% at $110.41 — below the eventual warrant strike — then traded at $128.80 in the after-hours session, and was up 21.3% in Friday's pre-market. By Friday's close roughly half of that had gone. TD Cowen raised its price target to $149 while keeping a Hold rating.
Two absences are worth naming. Anthropic has published nothing of its own about the agreement, so the entire narrative rests on the counterparty's release. And Bloomberg's coverage called it a $12 billion deal; Akamai's own document says $11.6 billion, which is the figure carried here.
- Confirmed Anthropic has committed $11.6bn over seven years to Akamai Cloud, with a potential further $9bn taking the total possible commitment to approximately $20bn. Akamai press release, 24 Sep 2026
- Confirmed Warrant issued to Anthropic over 7.7m shares as-converted (~5% of common stock) at $111.33; ~2% vests with the $11.6bn commitment, ~1% for each additional $3bn spent. Akamai press release
- Confirmed Akamai expects ~$5.5bn of capex against the commitment, including ~$1.7bn of incremental 2026 capex to pre-purchase components and memory, with no change to 2026 revenue guidance. Akamai investor relations
- Reported AKAM traded at $128.80 (+16.66%) after hours on 24 Sep and was up 21.3% in Friday's pre-market; the session gave back roughly half. Benzinga
Lead story in the September 25, 2026 edition · front page