Anthropic commits to spending $11.6B over seven years on Akamai cloud services and secures an option to take a stake of up to 5%; AKAM jumps 17%+ after hours (Harshita Mary Varghese/Reuters)

Anthropic has committed to spending $11.6 billion on cloud services from Akamai Technologies over seven years. As part of the deal, Anthropic has secured an option to take a stake of up to 5% in Akamai. According to Channel News Asia, the 5% stake is tied to Anthropic's initial $11.6 billion commitment and potential expansion of the agreement by up to another $9 billion.

Akamai shares jumped 16% in extended trading on Thursday, with Reuters reporting a jump of 17% or more. The deal is expected to require about $5.5 billion in total capital expenditure, with Akamai planning to increase its 2026 capital spending by about $1.7 billion to support the agreement.

The agreement includes a warrant that could give Anthropic a stake of up to 5% in Akamai, equivalent to about 7.7 million shares, with an exercise price of $111.33 per share. Channel News Asia reports that the deal could expand by an additional $9 billion, bringing the potential total commitment to about $20 billion.

Brief written by urgent.news from Techmeme, Channel News Asia — 2 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.