Bloomberg Podcasts · Sep 28, 2026
With Tom Leighton, Co-Founder and CEO of Akamai
Akamai has signed long-term commitments this year that Tom Leighton said will produce $2.2 billion a year of revenue once they are fully running.
Much of the AI build-out rests on gigawatt-scale data centers that local communities are resisting. Akamai's largest sites run at 10 to 20 megawatts, spread across 700 cities, and Leighton said that keeps it clear of the permitting fights.
"It's a huge advantage to us to have 4,000 points of presence in 700 cities."
Tom Leighton, Co-Founder and CEO of Akamai, on Bloomberg Podcasts, a week after Akamai signed its deal with Anthropic. Akamai sells cybersecurity and runs an edge network, computing sites placed close to users, which it now uses to run AI for customers.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 6 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
Anthropic is an ideal partner because AI works better close to users and data
This year's deals add up to $2.2B a year of revenue when fully ramped, he said
He said it will be accretive to margins
Over $4B of cash means Akamai does not need to borrow now
A rate rise of 1-2 points would not significantly hurt Akamai, he said
Small sites avoid the community pushback facing big data centers
AI demand is far from commoditized, he said
1. Why Anthropic
The interviewer asked why Anthropic was the right partner, since Akamai's edge network, which runs AI close to end users, looks more like something Meta would use.
Proximity is what Akamai sells
"Oh, Anthropic's a great company, clearly a leader in the development of AI and, really an ideal partner for Akamai." — Tom Leighton
"A lot of the uses of AI benefit greatly from, proximity to the user and proximity to the data, and that's exactly what Akamai provides." — Tom Leighton
