Akamai Technologies stock rocketed as much as 22% after the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based cloud infrastructure company disclosed a sweeping new computing agreement with AI developer Anthropic, the largest contract in Akamai's 27-year history.

Under the terms disclosed in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Akamai has committed $11.6 billion in capacity over seven years to support Anthropic's ballooning demand for compute, with an option to expand the deal by another $9 billion — a total potential commitment of roughly $20 billion. The agreement builds on a $1.8 billion arrangement the two companies struck earlier this year.

A stock warrant sweetens the deal

As part of the arrangement, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant to acquire non-voting convertible preferred stock convertible into as many as 7.7 million common shares — up to roughly 5% of Akamai's outstanding stock — at an exercise price of $111.33 per share. About 2% of that stake vests immediately with the initial commitment, while the remainder unlocks in increments as Anthropic expands its purchases, according to Yahoo Finance's reporting on the deal.

Akamai co-founder and chief executive Tom Leighton framed the agreement as validation of the company's pivot from its legacy content-delivery roots toward AI infrastructure.

"Anthropic is advancing the AI revolution and we are thrilled they chose Akamai's capabilities for building and operating AI infrastructure at scale."

Leighton told investors on a call following the announcement that revenue tied to the Anthropic relationship should reach $150 million to $300 million next year, climbing to an annual run rate of roughly $1.7 billion by 2028. Akamai said the deal will add about $1.7 billion to its 2026 capital spending — largely to lock down supply-chain components including memory — but will not affect this year's revenue guidance.

The announcement rippled across the AI-infrastructure trade. Cloud rivals CoreWeave and Cloudflare also ticked higher in sympathy, according to 247wallst's market analysis, as investors bet that Anthropic's compute buildout will spread contracts across multiple providers rather than concentrating with the largest hyperscalers.

The deal lands at a volatile moment for markets broadly. Akamai's rally helped cushion a week in which the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to its highest level since 2007, rattling growth stocks even as major indexes still notched weekly gains. For Akamai, though, Friday's move was purely company-specific: a bet from one of the AI industry's best-funded labs that the 27-year-old company can compete for a slice of the infrastructure spending boom long dominated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Akamai is expected to detail the financial mechanics of the arrangement further in its next quarterly earnings call.