Akamai Technologies announced that it has acquired thousands of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs to power its distributed AI inference platform. The purchase expands the company’s edge computing footprint to 4,400 locations worldwide, allowing the firm to deliver lower‑latency AI workloads for customers in autonomous delivery, smart grids, and surgical robotics.
The new GPUs will be integrated with NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs and BlueField‑3 DPUs, creating a purpose‑built infrastructure that can route inference tasks to the most optimal edge node. Akamai claims the architecture can cut latency by up to 2.5× and reduce inference costs by as much as 86% compared with traditional hyperscaler deployments, a performance advantage that underpins the company’s strategy to capture the growing AI inference market.
"While hyperscalers continue to push the boundaries of AI training, Akamai is focused on meeting the unique demands of the inference era," COO Adam Karon said. CEO Dr. Tom Leighton added, "These rapidly growing products are well‑positioned to drive faster overall revenue growth for Akamai in the future, with Cloud Infrastructure Services growth, in particular, benefiting from strong customer interest in our new Akamai Inference Cloud and the overall growth of AI applications and agents in the marketplace." Leighton also noted, "Akamai solved this challenge before, and we're doing it again. Powered by NVIDIA AI infrastructure, Akamai Inference Cloud will meet the intensifying demand to scale AI inference capacity and performance by putting AI's decision‑making in thousands of locations around the world, enabling faster, smarter and more secure responses."
The acquisition follows a strong Q4 2025 earnings season in which Akamai reported revenue of $1.09 billion, up 7.4% year‑over‑year, and a non‑GAAP EPS of $1.84, beating analyst expectations. Full‑year 2025 revenue reached $4.208 billion, a 5% increase, while Security revenue grew 11% to $592 million and Cloud Infrastructure Services (CIS) revenue surged 45% driven by AI deals. For fiscal 2026, the company is guiding revenue of $4.4‑$4.55 billion and non‑GAAP EPS of $6.20‑$7.20, figures that fall short of analyst forecasts and reflect lower operating margin guidance due to increased investment and hardware inflation.
Market reaction to the earnings report was muted; Akamai’s stock fell about 9% after the Q4 2025 results and roughly 10% in after‑hours trading following the weaker‑than‑expected guidance. The new GPU acquisition, while a strategic win, is weighed against the company’s near‑term profitability pressures, which investors are closely monitoring.
The move positions Akamai as a key player in the distributed AI inference space, leveraging its extensive edge network to offer latency‑critical services that traditional hyperscalers cannot match. The investment signals confidence in the long‑term growth of AI applications, but the company’s guidance indicates that the capital outlay will temporarily compress margins as it scales the new infrastructure. Investors will likely view the acquisition as a positive long‑term catalyst, tempered by short‑term headwinds from higher hardware costs and a cautious outlook for the next fiscal year.
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