Why did Akamai stock surge after Anthropic’s $11.6 billion deal?

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Akamai Technologies shares jumped more than 20% in after-hours trading on Thursday after the company announced an $11.6 billion, seven-year cloud computing agreement with AI company Anthropic. (Sources: Akamai, Reuters, TradingView)
Under the agreement, Anthropic will use Akamai Cloud’s distributed infrastructure and software to support its growing CPU workload requirements. The contract runs for seven years.
The agreement allows for an additional $9 billion in commitments. If fully expanded, the relationship could reach approximately $20 billion, or $20.6 billion including the related warrant structure described by Akamai.
Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant representing up to about 5% of its common stock on an as-converted basis. About 2% is tied to the initial commitment, while the remaining portion depends on additional spending.
Akamai expects about $5.5 billion of capital expenditure related to the commitment. The company also expects roughly $1.7 billion of additional 2026 capex to secure and pre-purchase critical supply-chain components, including memory.
The Anthropic agreement adds to more than $2.8 billion in multi-year cloud infrastructure commitments Akamai had announced earlier in 2026. Akamai's Cloud Infrastructure Services revenue reached $99 million in the second quarter, up 39% year over year.
The agreement highlights growing demand for computing infrastructure beyond traditional AI GPUs. Anthropic will use Akamai's distributed cloud network for CPU workloads as its AI operations expand.
Despite the scale of the deal and planned investment, Akamai said the Anthropic commitment does not change its 2026 revenue guidance.
Investors reacted sharply to the size and duration of the Anthropic commitment, viewing it as a major expansion of Akamai's cloud infrastructure business. Shares were up 16.66% at $128.80 during after-hours trading in Benzinga's cited market data.
The Anthropic agreement strengthens Akamai's positioning as a provider of cloud infrastructure for AI workloads, adding a large, long-term customer commitment to its existing cloud business.

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