Anthropic Intensifies Partnership Spree With $1.8 Billion Akamai Deal
The AI startup has signed at least 5 major computing, infrastructure, and financial expansion deals this year alone.
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[Image source: Chetan Jha/MITSMR Middle East]
In a recent development, AI startup Anthropic has secured another strategic deal this year. Aiming to meet the rising demand for its AI software, the startup has established a $1.8 billion computing partnership with Akamai Technologies. The latter’s stock jumped 20% on Friday after the announcement of a deal with an undisclosed AI company and the posting of first-quarter earnings.
“We are very pleased to announce that a leading frontier model provider has committed to $1.8 billion over seven years for CIS, further validating our position as a key infrastructure provider in the AI economy,” said Dr Tom Leighton, Chief Executive Officer, Akamai, in a press release.
While Akamai refrained from disclosing the AI partner, people familiar with the development have named Anthropic as the new partner, Bloomberg reported.
Both companies have declined to comment on the matter.
Notably, Anthropic has signed at least 5 major computing, infrastructure, and financial expansion deals this year. Recently, it signed a deal with SpaceX to use all of the compute capacity at the company’s Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee.
“This gives us access to more than 300 megawatts of new capacity (over 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs) within the month. This additional capacity will directly improve capacity for Claude Pro and Claude Max subscribers,” the company shared.
It also committed to spending $200 billion with Google Cloud over five years as part of a recent agreement.
Despite the fallout with the Pentagon earlier this year, which was expected to have a major impact on the AI startup, Anthropic is going strong on the revenue and growth fronts.
In February, it raised $30 billion in Series G funding at a $380 billion post-money valuation in a round co-led by D. E. Shaw Ventures, Dragoneer, Founders Fund, ICONIQ, and MGX.
“Whether it is entrepreneurs, startups, or the world’s largest enterprises, the message from our customers is the same: Claude is increasingly becoming critical to how businesses work,” said Krishna Rao, Chief Financial Officer, Anthropic. “This fundraising reflects the incredible demand we are seeing from these customers, and we will use this investment to continue building the enterprise-grade products and models they have come to depend on.”
Now, it is reportedly eyeing a fundraising round that could value the company at nearly $1 trillion.
