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AKAM
FY2025 Q4
Improving
Akamai Technologies, Inc. earnings call
Buzzberg read
CIS revenue growth accelerates to 45%, expected to further accelerate in 2026
Akamai reported a strong end to 2025, with cloud infrastructure services (CIS) growing 45% and security products showing robust growth. The company announced a major 4-year, $200M inference cloud deal, significant capex investments including a $250M buildout and a $200M memory cost hit, and guided to accelerated CIS growth in 2026. CIS revenue grew 45% YoY in Q4 2025, accelerating from 39% growth in Q3.
Buzzberg read CIS revenue growth accelerates to 45%, expected to further accelerate in 2026 Akamai reported a strong end to 2025, with cloud infrastructure services (CIS) growing 45% and security products showing robust growth. The company announced a major 4-year, $200M inference cloud deal, significant capex investments including a $250M buildout and a $200M memory cost hit, and guided to accelerated CIS growth in 2026. CIS revenue grew 45% YoY in Q4 2025, accelerating from 39% growth in Q3. Read full analysisCollapse analysis
Akamai reported a strong end to 2025, with cloud infrastructure services (CIS) growing 45% and security products showing robust growth. The company announced a major 4-year, $200M inference cloud deal, significant capex investments including a $250M buildout and a $200M memory cost hit, and guided to accelerated CIS growth in 2026. CIS revenue grew 45% YoY in Q4 2025, accelerating from 39% growth in Q3.
- API security grew >100% YoY, exiting the year with a run rate exceeding $100M.
- Akamai signed a 4-year, $200M commitment for AI inference cloud with a major US tech company, with revenue starting in Q4 2026.
- 2026 capex will be significantly higher than prior years, fueled by a $250M AI inference cloud buildout plus an additional ~$200M due to memory chip price inflation.
Revenue$1.0949B+4% QoQ
EPS$1.84-1% QoQ
Gross margin54.56%Reported
Operating margin13.82%Reported
6 grounded callouts
What matters now
The highest-signal changes from the call.
AI
Akamai signs $200M four-year AI inference cloud deal starting Q4 2026
AI
Initial AI inference cloud capacity sold out ahead of GA
Show 3 more callouts
Capex
Plans to increase AI inference capacity about tenfold with $250M investment
Supply
Memory chip inflation adds $200M to 2026 CapEx forecast
Security
Security growth driven by API security (over 100% YoY) and GuardaCore
Reported period
Actuals
| Metric | Reported | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $1.0949B | +4% QoQ |
| EPS | $1.84 | -1% QoQ |
| Gross margin | 54.56% | Reported |
| Operating margin | 13.82% | Reported |
| Free cash flow | $0.1619B | -34% QoQ |
| Capex | $0.2047B | Reported |
Forward-looking
Forward guidance
| Metric | Period | Range | Midpoint | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capex | FY2026 | $4.4B–$4.55B | $4.475B | Guided |
| EPS | FY2026 | $6.20–$7.20In line with consensus | $6.70 | Guided |
| Operating margin | FY2026 | 26%–28% | 27% | Guided |
| Revenue | FY2026 | $4.4B–$4.55BIn line with consensus | $4.475B | Guided |
AI, capex & demand read
Management read
Confident
Management expressed strong enthusiasm about the AI inference cloud opportunity, highlighted record demand and a large new contract, and maintained a positive outlook despite margin dilution from investments.
Management AI read
Management emphasized strong AI tailwinds driving growth in cloud infrastructure services, with the launch of Akamai Inference Cloud using NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs to enable distributed, low-latency AI inference at the edge. They reported a major $200 million, four-year commitment from a leading US tech company for AI inference cloud, which ramps in Q4 2026. They also noted that AI is expanding the a
Investment and capacity
Akamai is significantly increasing capital expenditures in 2026, with full-year CapEx expected at 23%-26% of revenue, up from prior levels. This includes approximately $250 million to augment the AI inference cloud and an additional $200 million due to inflationary pressure in memory chips and server costs. The higher CapEx is primarily allocated to compute infrastructure to support rapid CIS grow
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Companiesreturns since call
Partners
Partners
Dr. Tom Layton
The first 20-city deployment of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs for the Akamai Inference Cloud is already sold out before GA, and the company is deploying an order-of-magnitude more capacity in 2026 with a $250M capex investment. — This shows that edge-inference demand is robust and that NVIDIA GPUs are the gating factor, strengthening NVIDIA's position.
Evidence
“Akamai Inference Cloud does just that by incorporating NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs into Akamai's distributed cloud infrastructure”
Competitors
Competitors
Dr. Tom Layton
Akamai is winning compute deals against cloud competitors, potentially including Nutanix, based on performance and support.
Evidence
“A very well-known antivirus software company chose Akamai's cloud for their VPN service telling us they liked our performance and support better than what they previously got from two of our cloud competitors.”
Competitors
Dr. Tom Layton
Akamai is taking multiservice deals away from competitors, including potentially Cloudflare and other hyperscalers.
Evidence
“A leading social networking platform that was using us on a pay-as-you-go basis committed to consolidate their multi-vendor stack onto Akamai's cloud platform, providing us with another takeaway from a hyperscaler.”
Supply chain
Supply chain
Ed McGowan
Akamai is seeing a dramatic rise in the price of memory chips, which is forcing it to increase its 2026 capex forecast by ~$200M; this signals that memory costs are an industry-wide headwind that will hit all server makers and buyers. — This indicates that the memory pricing surge is affecting compute infrastructure costs across the industry, benefiting pure-play memory makers like Micron while pressuring the margins of data center operators.
Evidence
“Specifically, we are seeing a dramatic increase in the price of memory chips, which is driving up the cost of servers. This supply constraint has necessitated an upward adjustment to our CapEx forecast of approximately $200 million for”
External signals
Supply-chain alpha · 3returns since call
Akamai is seeing a dramatic rise in the price of memory chips, which is forcing it to increase its 2026 capex forecast by ~$200M; this signals that memory costs are an industry-wide headwind that will hit all server makers and buyers.
Evidence
“Specifically, we are seeing a dramatic increase in the price of memory chips, which is driving up the cost of servers. This supply constraint has necessitated an upward adjustment to our CapEx forecast of approximately $200 million for 202…”
The first 20-city deployment of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs for the Akamai Inference Cloud is already sold out before GA, and the company is deploying an order-of-magnitude more capacity in 2026 with a $250M capex investment.
Evidence
“The GPUs we deployed into 20 cities are already those pretty much sold out. So we're adding an order of magnitude more capacity, and that's what the $250 million investment is for.”
Akamai is investing ~$250M to augment the AI inference cloud, but it is also facing an additional ~$200M in higher hardware costs due to memory inflation, shifting the economics of their capex-to-revenue model.
Evidence
“Excluding the impact of the increased hardware pricing, 2026 CapEx would have trended within the 18% to 22% range.”
Methodology & coverage
Management-only analysis. All 7 validated company mentions are shown. Reported actuals and forward guidance are kept separate. Public evidence is limited to eight short attributed quotes. AI-generated analysis can be incomplete or wrong; verify important claims against the original source.