Akamai's 11.6 Billion Dollar Deal Shows Claude Is Built to Last

Akamai announced on 24 September 2026 that it is committing 11.6 billion US dollars over seven years to run Anthropic's Claude cloud workloads, with room to expand to nearly 20 billion dollars. For businesses weighing whether to build daily workflows around Claude AI, that scale of spending is a strong signal the tool is not going away anytime soon.

What did Akamai and Anthropic just announce?

Akamai, a cloud and network company, said Anthropic will use Akamai Cloud's distributed infrastructure to support its accelerating CPU workload demands, the computing power behind running Claude for millions of users. The deal can expand by up to an additional 9 billion dollars, for a total potential commitment of about 20 billion dollars over the seven year term. As part of the agreement, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant for shares representing up to approximately 5 percent of Akamai's common stock, tied to how far the relationship expands.

Anthropic is advancing the AI revolution and we are thrilled they chose Akamai's capabilities for building and operating AI infrastructure at scale. Akamai has an unparalleled reputation for helping our customers achieve their business-critical goals and build the future. Our expanding global footprint, combined with our years of experience serving the world's largest enterprises, positions us to be the infrastructure provider for secure and responsible AI applications and workloads.from Dr. Tom Leighton, co-founder and CEO, Akamai (Akamai Technologies, 24 September 2026)

What can Claude actually do for a business right now?

A day before the Akamai deal, on 25 September 2026, Anthropic opened a new directory submission portal so outside developers can build and publish plugins for Claude. A plugin packages a connector to another app, a reusable skill, or both, and once Anthropic approves it, it is listed in the Claude directory for any user to install.

• Developers on paid Claude plans can submit a single connector to their own app, or a fuller plugin bundle hosted on GitHub.
• Every submission is automatically checked and safety scanned before Anthropic reviews it.
• Once a plugin is published, its developer gets usage analytics, including installs and the searches that led people to find it.

Does this matter if you just use Claude at work?

Most business owners will never read an infrastructure press release, and that is fine. What it means in practice is twofold. First, the size of Akamai's commitment suggests Claude is being built for the long run, which matters if you are training staff on it or wiring it into how your business handles HR, finance or admin work. Second, the new plugin directory means more of the apps your business already uses, accounting tools, CRMs, scheduling software, should eventually connect to Claude directly, instead of you copying information back and forth by hand.

Also today

• xAI has started using its own Grok Bot to handle customer support tickets, an early real world test of how far an AI agent can run support work on its own (xAI).
• OpenAI marked two years of OpenAI Academy, its free AI training program, and said it keeps adding new learning paths for individuals and organisations worldwide (OpenAI).

What should you do this week?

You do not need to track every AI company's infrastructure spending, but it is worth noticing when a deal this size lands, because it tells you which tools are worth the time to learn properly. If your team is still using Claude for one off questions instead of real workflows, that is the gap to close first, before waiting for a plugin to do the connecting for you. Our Master Claude AI for Business Productivity program walks Malaysian business owners through exactly this, turning Claude into a practical co-worker for HR, finance, admin and reporting using Claude Projects, Skills and Cowork.