Anthropic committed $11.6 billion to CPU capacity at Akamai. The largest CPU contract in AI says more about where agent workloads run than any accelerator deal this year.
- Akamai will supply CPU-based compute for Anthropic’s agent and tool workloads over seven years, with an option to add $9 billion.
- The contract is entirely CPU, the chief financial officer confirmed, unlike Akamai’s other recent contracts that mix CPU and GPU work.
- Akamai will spend about $5.5 billion in capital expenditure, including $1.7 billion in 2026 to pre-purchase components such as memory.
- Revenue starts in the second half of 2027 and reaches an annualised run rate near $1.7 billion by the end of 2028.
- Anthropic received warrants for about 5 percent of Akamai, vesting as it commits more spending.
Three of the four stages in an agent turn are general-purpose compute. The GPU is only the stop in the middle.
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