Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM) is a US company headquartered at 145 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts, that operates a globally distributed content-delivery, cybersecurity and cloud-computing platform (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026)). It was founded in 1998 by MIT applied mathematician Tom Leighton and Danny Lewin, and Leighton has been chief executive since 2013 (Source: akamai.com) (Source: akamai.com). Akamai describes itself as "the cloud company that powers and protects an AI-driven world" (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026), Exhibit 99.1). In AI it is a compute provider rather than a model developer: it sells distributed cloud capacity for AI workloads, and since 2026 it has been one of Anthropic's non-hyperscaler compute suppliers.
| Founded | August 20, 1998 (incorporated), Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Founders | Tom Leighton, Danny Lewin, with Jonathan Seelig and Randall Kaplan |
| Chief executive | Tom Leighton (since 2013) |
| Listing | Nasdaq Global Select Market (AKAM) |
| AI products | Akamai Cloud; Akamai Inference Cloud (with Nvidia, October 2025) |
| Major AI customer | Anthropic (master services agreement dated May 5, 2026) |
Sources for the table: Akamai's company history and leadership pages and its September 2026 Form 8-K (Source: akamai.com) (Source: akamai.com) (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026)).
Snapshot
Compute
| Date | Counterparty | Commitment | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-24 (announced; plans entered 2026-09-18) | Anthropic | ~$11.6B over seven years | Project Plans 2 and 3 under the May 2026 MSA; expandable by up to $9B to ~$20B; warrant for up to ~5% of common stock | (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026)) |
| 2026-05-08 (reported) | Anthropic | $1.8B over seven years | Master services agreement dated May 5, 2026 | (Source: bloomberg.com) |
History
Akamai's origins lie in a challenge that Tim Berners-Lee posed at MIT in early 1995 to find a better way to deliver internet content as web congestion grew. Leighton, then head of the Algorithms Group at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, assembled a team; Lewin joined him in 1996, and the two developed algorithms to route and replicate content across a large network of distributed servers. After entering the MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition in 1997, they incorporated Akamai on August 20, 1998 under an exclusive licence to MIT intellectual property. Akamai delivered its first live traffic in February 1999 and launched commercial service in April 1999 with Yahoo! as a charter customer. George Conrades became its first chairman and chief executive in April 1999, and Paul Sagan was chief executive from 2005 to 2013 (Source: akamai.com).
AI infrastructure
On October 28, 2025 Akamai launched Akamai Inference Cloud, a distributed platform built on Nvidia Blackwell infrastructure that places inference capacity at the edge of its network, close to users and devices, with 20 initial locations. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang was quoted in the announcement saying the two companies were "moving inference closer to users everywhere" (Source: prnewswire.com). Akamai describes Akamai Cloud as supporting "a continuum of compute from core to edge" across thousands of points of presence, on diversified hardware (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026), Exhibit 99.1).
Akamai's September 2026 announcement stated that, before the second Anthropic agreement, it had announced more than $2.8 billion in multi-year Cloud Infrastructure Services commitments across its customer base during 2026 (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026), Exhibit 99.1). In the same Form 8-K it disclosed a seven-year statement of work with Lenovo, entered September 23, 2026, for hardware, software and related services, and a September 24, 2026 build request under which contract manufacturer Jabil is authorised to purchase about $1.7 billion of memory components on Akamai's behalf, both classed as material agreements (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026)).
Anthropic agreements
Bloomberg reported on May 8, 2026 that Anthropic had signed a $1.8 billion, seven-year computing agreement with Akamai (Source: bloomberg.com). Akamai's later filing dates the underlying master services agreement, under which it provides Anthropic with dedicated cloud computing capacity and managed support services, to May 5, 2026 (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026)).
On September 18, 2026 the two companies entered Project Plans 2 and 3 under that agreement, and Akamai announced them on September 24. Anthropic committed to pay approximately $11.6 billion in aggregate, subject to delivery and service-availability requirements, over initial seven-year terms from each plan's service start date. Anthropic may terminate a plan on a material outage, and may terminate the master agreement on a material uncured breach by Akamai or on a change of control of Akamai in favour of a direct competitor of Anthropic. Akamai may terminate the master agreement on an uncured breach by Anthropic, and either party may terminate it on the other's bankruptcy or insolvency or when no project plan remains in effect; a plan terminated for breach does not end the other plans, which continue as separate agreements. Akamai stated that the agreement was no longer immaterial to the company (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026)). The announcement said the capacity would support Anthropic's "accelerating CPU workload demands", that the relationship could expand by up to a further $9 billion to a total of about $20 billion, that capital expenditure related to the $11.6 billion commitment would be about $5.5 billion, and that 2026 capital expenditure would rise by about $1.7 billion to pre-purchase supply-chain components including memory, with no change to 2026 revenue guidance (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026), Exhibit 99.1).
In consideration of Project Plan 3, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant to buy up to 387,051 shares of Series B non-voting convertible preferred stock at $2,226.60 per share (the 30-trading-day volume-weighted average price of its common stock before September 18, 2026, multiplied by 20), each convertible into 20 common shares, or 7,741,020 common shares at $111.33 each on an as-converted basis, about 5% of Akamai's common stock. The first tranche, 40% of the warrant, vests on Anthropic's first payment under Project Plan 3; three further 20% tranches vest with each additional $3.0 billion of contract value Anthropic commits, all subject to conditions including that the master agreement remain in effect. The warrant was issued in a private placement under Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act without an underwriter. The preferred shares participate in common-stock dividends at the conversion rate, carry a $0.01-per-share liquidation preference, convert to common stock only when transferred outside Anthropic's group, and carry no voting rights except as Delaware law requires. The vested warrant is exercisable for cash until the seventh anniversary of issue (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026)). Akamai's press release described the vesting as about 2% of its common stock in connection with the announced commitment and about 1% for each further $3 billion of purchases (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026), Exhibit 99.1).
Leighton said in the announcement that Anthropic "is advancing the AI revolution and we are thrilled they chose Akamai's capabilities for building and operating AI infrastructure at scale" (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026), Exhibit 99.1). Akamai shares rose as much as 20% in after-hours trading following the announcement, according to Investing.com (Source: investing.com); Reuters reported a 22% rise in extended trading (Source: reuters.com).
The same Form 8-K disclosed two supply agreements entered in the days after the Anthropic plans. On September 23, 2026 Akamai and Lenovo Global Technologies Ireland International Limited entered a Master Product and Services Agreement (initial term three years) and a seven-year Statement of Work No. 1 under which Lenovo supplies hardware, software and related services. On September 24, 2026 Akamai issued a build request to its contract manufacturer Jabil, under their 2019 master services agreement, authorizing Jabil to purchase approximately $1.7 billion of memory components, which Jabil holds on consignment and repurchases at cost as they are used; Akamai stated that the Jabil agreement was no longer immaterial to it (Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026)).
Policy and industry positions
Akamai is among the signatories of the 2026 collective cyberdefense letter, alongside frontier labs, cloud providers and security firms (A call for collective action on cyber defense (open letter, August 27, 2026)).
Relationships
- supports: Akamai Technologies Form 8-K: Anthropic Project Plans and Warrant Agreement (September 2026) (Form 8-K and Exhibit 99.1, September 2026)
- related: Anthropic (compute supplier; warrant holder)
- related: Circular Financing in AI (warrant vesting with Anthropic's purchase commitments)
- related: AI Infrastructure Capex
- related: Nvidia & TSMC — AI Compute Infrastructure (Akamai Inference Cloud built on Nvidia Blackwell)
- instance-of: AI Data Centers
- related: Procurement-Driven AI Governance
- related: CoreWeave