Akamai acquires NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs to enhance AI inference capabilities across its global cloud infrastructure, reducing latency and costs.
Quiver AI Summary
Akamai announced the acquisition of thousands of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs to enhance its global distributed cloud infrastructure, creating a unified platform for AI research and development that optimizes AI inference workloads across its expansive network. This shift addresses the need for improved inference capabilities, as many organizations struggle with latency issues that hinder AI scalability. Akamai's approach treats the globe as a low-latency network, supporting various applications, from autonomous delivery to surgical robotics, effectively bringing AI solutions closer to real-world use cases. The integration of NVIDIA technologies enables high-performance inference and localized fine-tuning while reducing costs and enhancing efficiency compared to traditional cloud architectures. This acquisition is part of Akamai's ongoing strategy to advance its AI capabilities and meet the growing demand for decentralized AI processing.
Potential Positives
- Akamai's acquisition of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs enhances its global distributed cloud infrastructure, supporting rapid AI inference with reduced latency and data egress issues.
- The deployment sets Akamai apart by addressing industry needs for decentralized AI inference, crucial for real-world applications such as autonomous delivery and healthcare.
- The integration of AI infrastructure enables substantial cost savings, with up to 86% reductions in AI inference costs compared to traditional hyperscaler infrastructure.
Potential Negatives
- The announcement highlights Akamai's focus on AI inference, which implies that the company's previous endeavors may have lagged in this critical area compared to competitors, potentially impacting its market position.
- The mention of latency and data egress issues could suggest that previous infrastructure was inadequate, necessitating this significant investment in new technology.
- The acquisition of thousands of GPUs indicates a substantial financial investment, which may raise concerns about the company's cash flow and resource allocation if the anticipated ROI does not materialize.
FAQ
What is Akamai's recent acquisition?
Akamai has acquired thousands of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs to enhance its global distributed cloud infrastructure.
How does Akamai plan to improve AI inference?
By creating a unified platform that intelligently routes AI workloads to optimized compute resources, reducing latency and data egress issues.
What is the significance of inference in AI?
Inference is crucial as it determines how AI models interact with real-world data, impacting applications in various industries.
How does the new architecture benefit businesses?
The architecture provides rapid responses and high performance while reducing costs, enabling businesses to deploy AI effectively at scale.
What improvements did Akamai see with its initial GPU deployment?
Akamai experienced strong demand and plans to expand its GPU capacity as part of its cloud infrastructure strategy.
Disclaimer: This is an AI-generated summary of a press release distributed by GlobeNewswire. The model used to summarize this release may make mistakes. See the full release here.
$AKAM Insider Trading Activity
$AKAM insiders have traded $AKAM stock on the open market 12 times in the past 6 months. Of those trades, 0 have been purchases and 12 have been sales.
Here’s a breakdown of recent trading of $AKAM stock by insiders over the last 6 months:
- ROBERT BLUMOFE (Chief Technology Officer) has made 0 purchases and 4 sales selling 13,500 shares for an estimated $1,281,550.
- PAUL C JOSEPH (EVP - Global Sales) has made 0 purchases and 3 sales selling 15,000 shares for an estimated $1,272,575.
- LAURA HOWELL (SVP, Chief Accounting Officer) sold 11,273 shares for an estimated $1,128,822
- MANI SUNDARAM (EVP and GM Security) sold 10,438 shares for an estimated $931,604
- ADAM KARON (COO & GM Edge Technology Group) has made 0 purchases and 2 sales selling 8,048 shares for an estimated $748,026.
- AARON AHOLA (EVP & General Counsel) sold 7,500 shares for an estimated $739,950
To track insider transactions, check out Quiver Quantitative's insider trading dashboard.
$AKAM Revenue
$AKAM had revenues of $1.1B in Q4 2025. This is an increase of 7.35% from the same period in the prior year.
You can track AKAM financials on Quiver Quantitative's AKAM stock page.
$AKAM Congressional Stock Trading
Members of Congress have traded $AKAM stock 3 times in the past 6 months. Of those trades, 1 have been purchases and 2 have been sales.
Here’s a breakdown of recent trading of $AKAM stock by members of Congress over the last 6 months:
- REPRESENTATIVE LISA C. MCCLAIN has traded it 3 times. They made 1 purchase worth up to $15,000 on 10/30 and 2 sales worth up to $30,000 on 10/31, 10/30.
To track congressional stock trading, check out Quiver Quantitative's congressional trading dashboard.
$AKAM Hedge Fund Activity
We have seen 332 institutional investors add shares of $AKAM stock to their portfolio, and 412 decrease their positions in their most recent quarter.
Here are some of the largest recent moves:
- UBS AM, A DISTINCT BUSINESS UNIT OF UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC removed 5,069,562 shares (-89.9%) from their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $442,319,284
- POINT72 ASSET MANAGEMENT, L.P. added 3,797,143 shares (+inf%) to their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $331,300,726
- BLACKROCK, INC. removed 3,583,240 shares (-25.4%) from their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $312,637,690
- TWO SIGMA ADVISERS, LP added 1,539,700 shares (+511.0%) to their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $134,338,825
- TWO SIGMA INVESTMENTS, LP added 1,392,485 shares (+212.2%) to their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $121,494,316
- NORTHWESTERN MUTUAL WEALTH MANAGEMENT CO added 1,381,838 shares (+76896.9%) to their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $120,565,365
- RUBRIC CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LP added 1,200,000 shares (+inf%) to their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $104,700,000
To track hedge funds' stock portfolios, check out Quiver Quantitative's institutional holdings dashboard.
$AKAM Analyst Ratings
Wall Street analysts have issued reports on $AKAM in the last several months. We have seen 4 firms issue buy ratings on the stock, and 0 firms issue sell ratings.
Here are some recent analyst ratings:
- Scotiabank issued a "Sector Outperform" rating on 01/09/2026
- Keybanc issued a "Overweight" rating on 12/15/2025
- Oppenheimer issued a "Outperform" rating on 11/17/2025
- DA Davidson issued a "Buy" rating on 10/16/2025
To track analyst ratings and price targets for $AKAM, check out Quiver Quantitative's $AKAM forecast page.
$AKAM Price Targets
Multiple analysts have issued price targets for $AKAM recently. We have seen 13 analysts offer price targets for $AKAM in the last 6 months, with a median target of $110.0.
Here are some recent targets:
- James Fish from Piper Sandler set a target price of $97.0 on 02/23/2026
- Jackson Ader from Keybanc set a target price of $120.0 on 02/20/2026
- Roger Boyd from UBS set a target price of $110.0 on 02/20/2026
- Aaron Samuels from Susquehanna set a target price of $120.0 on 02/20/2026
- Michael Elias from TD Cowen set a target price of $100.0 on 02/20/2026
- William Power from Baird set a target price of $110.0 on 02/20/2026
- Patrick Colville from Scotiabank set a target price of $120.0 on 02/20/2026
Full Release
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM), announced the acquisition of thousands of NVIDIA ® Blackwell GPUs to bolster its global distributed cloud infrastructure. The deployment creates a unified platform for AI R&D, fine-tuning, and post-training optimization that intelligently routes AI inference workloads to optimized compute resources across Akamai's massive global network. The architecture is designed to support rapid inference by reducing the latency and data egress issues associated with centralized data centers.
While the first wave of AI focused on model training in centralized hubs, the industry has reached a tipping point where inference matters as much as training. The MIT Technology Review recently reported that 56 percent of organizations cite latency as the primary barrier preventing AI deployment at scale. By treating the globe as a single, low-latency backplane, Akamai is bridging this gap and providing the foundational infrastructure for physical and agentic AI where decisions must happen at the speed of the real world.
“While hyperscalers continue to push the boundaries of AI training, Akamai is focused on meeting the unique demands of the inference era,” said Adam Karon, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager, Cloud Technology Group, Akamai. “Centralized AI factories remain essential for building models, but bringing those models to life at scale requires a decentralized nervous system. By distributing inference-optimized compute across our global fabric, Akamai isn’t just adding capacity. We’re providing the scale, at minimal latency, that is required to move AI from the laboratory to the street corner and the hospital bed – where the work happens, where the data lives, and where the ROI is realized.”
Akamai’s adoption of Blackwell GPUs advances Akamai’s vision for a globally distributed AI compute grid built for the inference era. By extending AI processing beyond centralized AI factories to high-density distributed infrastructure, Akamai allows AI to interact with physical systems — from autonomous delivery and smart grids to surgical robotics and critical fraud prevention — without the geographic or cost limitations of traditional cloud architecture.
The integration of NVIDIA Blackwell AI infrastructure enables:
- Predictable, High-Performance Inference : Processing AI workloads on dedicated GPU clusters to generate rapid responses.
- Localized Fine-Tuning : Optimization of Large Language Models (LLMs) on-site to support data privacy and regional compliance needs.
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Post-Model Training:
Fine-tuning and adapting foundation models on proprietary data to improve accuracy for specific tasks.
This announcement follows Akamai’s recent initiatives to expand its AI inference and generalized compute capabilities. In October 2025, the company announced Akamai Inference Cloud , redefining where and how AI is used by bringing AI inference closer to users and devices.
By providing tools for platform engineers and developers to build and run AI applications and data-intensive workloads closer to end users, Akamai delivers highly efficient throughput while reducing latency up to 2.5x, saving businesses as much as 86% on AI inference using NVIDIA AI infrastructure when compared to traditional hyperscaler infrastructure.
The platform combines NVIDIA RTX PRO™ Servers , featuring NVIDIA RTX PRO™ 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs , and NVIDIA BlueField ® -3 DPUs with Akamai's distributed cloud computing infrastructure and global edge network, which has over 4,400 locations worldwide.
Akamai has seen strong demand for its initial deployment of NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs, and will be continuing to add GPU capacity as part of its cloud infrastructure strategy.
About Akamai
Akamai is the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online. Our market-leading security solutions, superior threat intelligence, and global operations team provide defense in depth to safeguard enterprise data and applications everywhere. Akamai’s full-stack cloud computing solutions deliver performance and affordability on the world’s most distributed platform. Global enterprises trust Akamai to provide the industry-leading reliability, scale, and expertise they need to grow their business with confidence. Learn more at akamai.com and akamai.com/blog , or follow Akamai Technologies on X and LinkedIn.
Contacts
Akamai Media Relations
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