Akamai (AKAM) Stock Rockets 27% on Massive $1.8B Anthropic Partnership

Key Highlights

• Anthropic and Akamai finalized a seven-year cloud infrastructure agreement valued at $1.8 billion.
• Akamai’s stock price skyrocketed 27% in one trading session, representing its strongest performance in over two decades.
• This partnership marks the largest customer agreement Akamai has ever secured.
• Anthropic continues diversifying its computing infrastructure across multiple vendors beyond traditional cloud giants.
• The AI company’s annualized revenue has surpassed $30 billion following explosive growth.

Akamai Technologies has secured what represents its most significant customer partnership to date. The cloud infrastructure provider will deliver computing services to Anthropic, the artificial intelligence firm responsible for developing the Claude AI assistant.

Akamai Technologies, Inc., AKAM

The seven-year partnership carries a total value of $1.8 billion, averaging approximately $257 million annually throughout the contract duration.

Bloomberg News originally revealed Anthropic as the unnamed customer, according to sources with knowledge of the arrangement. Neither organization provided official statements regarding the report.

During its first-quarter 2026 earnings presentation, Akamai revealed details of the agreement without disclosing the client’s identity. Market participants responded swiftly after learning the contract’s substantial value.

Record-Breaking Stock Performance

On May 8, Akamai’s shares closed with a remarkable 27% increase. This represented the company’s most substantial single-session percentage gain in more than twenty-two years.

The momentum extended into subsequent trading. Shares climbed an additional 28% on Friday, touching $149.05.

Akamai’s Cloud Infrastructure Services division had already demonstrated strong momentum, posting 40% year-over-year expansion and generating $95 million during the first quarter. The Anthropic partnership significantly augments this existing growth trajectory.

Tom Leighton, Akamai’s chief executive, characterized this as the organization’s most substantial contract ever. He referenced another significant cloud services agreement worth $200 million signed in February with an additional technology firm.

Originally established as a content delivery network in 1998, Akamai specialized in accelerating video and web content distribution. The company pivoted toward cloud computing infrastructure following its $900 million acquisition of Linode in 2022.

This strategic acquisition merged Linode’s developer-oriented computing platforms with Akamai’s extensive network spanning more than 4,200 locations throughout over 130 nations. Subsequently, the organization introduced artificial intelligence-focused inference services, including Akamai Cloud Inference in March 2025 and Akamai Inference Cloud in October 2025.

Anthropic’s Multi-Vendor Strategy

The Akamai partnership represents one component of Anthropic’s comprehensive infrastructure strategy. The AI company has been systematically establishing computing relationships with numerous providers throughout recent months.

Just prior to the Akamai announcement, Anthropic revealed a partnership with SpaceX. This arrangement provides Anthropic with computing resources at a Memphis data facility, encompassing access to over 220,000 Nvidia processors.

Anthropic maintains a cloud computing partnership with Google reportedly valued at approximately $200 billion spanning five years. The company has established additional commitments with Amazon Web Services, CoreWeave, Nvidia, and Broadcom.

During a developer conference on May 6, Anthropic’s chief executive Dario Amodei disclosed that the company experienced 80-fold year-over-year revenue growth on an annualized basis during the first quarter. This extraordinary expansion propelled Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate beyond $30 billion.

Akamai’s forward-looking disclosures acknowledge conventional risks associated with substantial contracts. These include uncertainties regarding the customer’s ability to fulfill purchase commitments and Akamai’s capacity to deploy infrastructure according to schedule.

The agreement represents a commitment framework rather than recognized revenue. Akamai will provide ongoing updates regarding contract execution in subsequent earnings reports.