Akamai bets $5.5 billion on Anthropic – but the revenue doesn't arrive until 2027
The deal runs for seven years, yet the revenue doesn't start until the second half of 2027. Before then, Akamai must spend roughly $5.5 billion – and the customer earns about one percent more ownership for every three billion it buys, up to nearly five percent of the company in total.
Akamai Technologies has, according to a company announcement republished by Digital Terminal (dfd51e8a), entered into an expanded agreement with Anthropic worth $11.6 billion over seven years. The contract is meant to support Anthropic's growing CPU workloads by using Akamai Cloud's distributed AI infrastructure and software.
What makes the deal unusual is not just the size. Akamai has simultaneously issued Anthropic a warrant – a kind of option – on shares in the company, with most of the payoff triggered only if Anthropic purchases an additional nine billion dollars in services. And while the value on paper is enormous, the cash flow is the opposite: the capital expenditures come now, the revenue nearly two years from now.
The stock with an option attached: the warrant that binds the customer to the vendor
The warrant covers non-voting, convertible Series B preferred stock representing 7.7 million shares of Akamai's common stock on an as-converted basis – up to roughly five percent of the company – with an exercise price of $111.33 per share (dfd51e8a).
The structure is tiered: about two percent of ownership goes to Anthropic now, while the remaining roughly three percent is tied to additional purchases totaling nine billion dollars. Every three billion dollars in extra purchases unlocks about one percent more. The customer's upside thus grows in step with purchase volume, up to the roughly five percent the warrant can deliver in total.
The mechanism says something about how AI infrastructure deals are now being priced. A vendor committing billions of dollars of capacity to a single customer covers part of the risk by giving the customer a financial stake in the vendor's own upside. If Anthropic actually uses the capacity and Akamai's stock rises, the value of the warrant rises too. If the deal never materializes, most of the warrant's value disappears as well, since the exercise price is fixed. For Akamai, the arrangement works as an incentive that binds a key customer more tightly to the platform – without diluting control, since the shares are non-voting.
The accounting: $5.5 billion out, $150–300 million in – not until 2027
The financial shape of the deal may be the most important part for shareholders. In total, Akamai estimates the capital expenditures tied to the commitment at around $5.5 billion (dfd51e8a). In addition, capital expenditures in 2026 increase by roughly $1.7 billion to secure and pre-purchase critical supply-chain components, including memory. The company expects no change to its 2026 revenue guidance.
The phasing looks, according to Blockonomi (1fb69c91), which builds on the company's own figures, like this:
- $1.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2026
- $3.1 billion in 2027
- $700 million in 2028, when the last of the capacity comes online
The revenue flows the other way. Akamai projects $150–300 million in the second half of 2027, before revenue climbs toward an annualized run rate of $1.7 billion in late 2028. The contract has a "take-or-pay" structure – the customer pays whether or not the capacity is used – which reduces Akamai's volume risk, but not the time lag between spending and revenue.
On top of that, not even the full $11.6 billion is locked in: Simply Wall St points out in analytical commentary via Yahoo Finance that the contract "can stretch from $11.6 billion to as much as $20 billion" (47a73ef9) – that is, the base commitment is $11.6 billion, while the warrant tiers add up to another nine billion beyond that. This is the analysts' calculation, not a figure Akamai itself has confirmed in the sources.
The scale: $14.4 billion in committed revenue in a single year
The Anthropic deal does not stand alone. According to Blockonomi (1fb69c91), Akamai has secured roughly $14.4 billion in committed revenue from cloud infrastructure contracts signed this year, and management expects these agreements to generate around $2.2 billion in annual recurring revenue once customers take up the full contracted capacity. The capacity requires 95–105 megawatts of power, with roughly $22 million in annual revenue per megawatt.
It is worth noting that this figure is management's stated aggregate and is not reconciled against other previously reported commitment amounts in the sources. But the direction is clear: a company that historically lived on content delivery and CDN services is now rebuilding its financials around AI compute capacity – and the Anthropic contract is the single largest block in the new foundation.
The market cooled off quickly
The stock market reaction was sharp, but the accounts of it diverge. Insider Monkey via Yahoo Finance (89405895) writes that the stock fell 6.78 percent before the September 24 announcement, opened 14 percent higher the day after – and then gave back almost all of it, to finish up 3.20 percent at $113.94.
Other sources paint a wilder picture: CoinCentral (136d2138) reports a gain of 21 percent after the announcement, while Blockonomi (1fb69c91) cites 20.7 percent in extended trading, to $133.21.
The figures are not compatible, and no attempt is made here to reconcile them. But the pattern that comes through most clearly in the most detailed source resembles classic "buy the rumor, sell the news" dynamics: a strong opening, followed by a retracement in which the market presumably weighed the two-year capital commitment and customer concentration against the revenue potential.
The risk: one customer, two-thirds of the company
The most striking comparison comes from Insider Monkey's commentary (89405895): according to the analysis, the company is worth around $16 billion – and has just signed a single contract worth more than two-thirds of that, with one customer.
That is analyst commentary, not a fact about the deal, but the point is real: a contract worth $11.6–20 billion, tied to one payer over seven years, makes Akamai's future revenue stream disproportionately dependent on Anthropic's purchasing pace and financial health. Simply Wall St (47a73ef9) points in the same direction: a contract like this reinforces the existing risk that large deals dictate capacity utilization and cash flow timing, while heavy capacity building pressures margins. The analysts highlight debt servicing and capital expenditures as key metrics to watch.
The take-or-pay structure mitigates some of this – Anthropic owes the money regardless – but it does not protect against negotiating pressure, structural changes, or a counterparty that is itself under funding pressure in a capital-hungry AI landscape.
What we don't know
Several significant questions are unanswered in the available reporting. Anthropic's side of the deal is entirely absent: no statements from the company explain why it needs distributed CPU capacity from Akamai, or how this fits into Anthropic's overall compute strategy.
There is also no primary source in the material – no press release, SEC filing, or first-hand statement from either company. All of the deal's figures come from secondary reporting, of which Digital Terminal republishes what appears to be the company announcement most closely. The core figures should therefore be verified against official filings when they become available.
The dates also vary slightly between sources – Insider Monkey cites September 24, Digital Terminal published on September 26 – and the warrant's precise redemption terms beyond the purchase tiers are not detailed.
The number to watch
For anyone following this, three dates matter more than the stock price: the fourth quarter of 2026, when the first $1.7 billion in capital expenditures is to be spent on pre-purchasing memory and other components; the second half of 2027, when the first $150–300 million in revenue is supposed to materialize; and Anthropic's purchasing pace, which determines whether the warrant unlocks the final three percent – and whether the commitment approaches the $20 billion analysts believe it could theoretically reach. If Akamai manages to convert a CDN legacy into a sustainable AI infrastructure business on this foundation, it is this deal that carries the transformation. If not, the company carries the capacity alone.