Anthropic signed a USD 11.6 billion, seven-year contract with Akamai Technologies for computing power, adding to the AI developer’s growing list of data center deals. The agreement expands an earlier USD 1.8 billion computing deal between the two companies.

Akamai will supply Anthropic with access to central processing units, or CPUs, as demand for general-purpose chips rises across data centers supporting artificial intelligence services.

Demand for Anthropic’s Claude software surged in recent months as customers increasingly turned to its tools for coding and other tasks. The AI developer is buying computing resources from several major technology companies, including Alphabet’s Google and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Under the new agreement, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant giving the AI company the right to purchase Series B shares at USD 111.33 each. The warrant converts into 7.7 million common shares.

A portion of the warrant, representing about 2 percent of Akamai’s common stock, will vest alongside the computing agreement, which is expected to begin in the second half of next year. The remaining portion will become available over the seven-year contract.

The Anthropic contract represents the largest deal in Akamai’s history. The company estimates that capital spending tied to the agreement will total about USD 5.5 billion, more than six times last year's spending.

Most of the investment will go toward servers, chips and networking equipment, with the bulk of the spending expected next year.

Akamai CEO Tom Leighton said the company’s cloud business is “growing obviously extremely fast”. He added that revenue linked to cloud contracts could eclipse sales from Akamai’s other segments “fairly soon”.

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