Akamai stock is surging. A $12 billion Anthropic deal reveals its powerful edge over cloud providers.

By Steve Goldstein

Akamai stock is soaring on a pact with Anthropic.

Akamai Technologies stock soared in premarket trade on Friday after agreeing to supply cloud computing services to Anthropic for $12 billion.

The terms call for Anthropic to pay $11.6 billion over 7 years to use CPU capabilities from Akamai Cloud's distributed AI infrastructure and software. Akamai and Anthropic also have the option to expand the agreement to encompass another $9 billion of revenue, an option which JPMorgan analysts say follows "a path of low resistance" to be exercised.

Anthropic is getting warrants - derivatives allowing but not requiring it to buy stock at a future date - as part of the deal. Akamai is giving Anthropic warrants worth up to 5% of shares outstanding at a $111.33 exercise price, which is near to Thursday's closing price.

Akamai (AKAM) is now worth much more, with the stock trading up 21% to $133.71 in premarket trade.

The deal does require Akamai to make up-front investments before the Anthropic money starts rolling in.

Akamai expects no revenue this year, approximately $150 million to $300 million in 2027, and a continued ramp higher to reach $1.7 billion per year.

That will require $5.5 billion in capital expenditure, including $1.7 billion this year.

The JPMorgan analysts say Akamai may need to raise money next year, a point the company's CFO, Edward McGowan, didn't deny in a call with analysts. He noted the company has $4.6 billion in cash and access to another $1 billion that banks have agreed to lend to it. "If we need additional capital, we'll certainly have a discussion with our board and with our senior management team and do what we think is best for shareholders overall," he said.

Morgan Stanley analysts calculate the operating margins on this deal will be about 30%. Akamai's advantage is that it will be serving up CPUs that have smaller power needs than GPUs, "a dynamic that is not well-understood by the market when it comes to running AI workloads."

Analysts at KeyBanc said it was "unthinkable" how Akamai has grown its AI inference business, that started out with 2 to 5 megawatts of commitments in Oct. 2025 to 95 to 105 now.

-Steve Goldstein

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09-25-26 0442ET