Nvidia (NVDA) has been one of the biggest winners of the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure boom, with relentless spending on data centers continuing to fuel demand for its graphics processing units (GPUs) and networking equipment. But as AI workloads evolve, another part of Nvidia’s business is increasingly coming into focus: central processing units (CPUs). While still much smaller than its GPU franchise, CPUs could become an increasingly important contributor to the chipmaker’s next phase of growth.
A major new agreement between cloud infrastructure provider Akamai Technologies (AKAM) and frontier AI lab Anthropic could add another piece to that story. The nearly $12 billion deal does not directly involve Nvidia, at least based on what has been publicly disclosed so far. However, connections between all three companies suggest Nvidia could emerge as an indirect beneficiary—and the implications may extend beyond whatever revenue the agreement itself ultimately generates for the chipmaker.
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For investors, the bigger question is whether the deal provides another signal that Nvidia is successfully expanding its role in AI infrastructure beyond GPUs. With that, let’s take a closer look.
About Nvidia Stock
Nvidia is a premier technology firm known for its expertise in graphics processing units and artificial intelligence solutions. The company is renowned for its pioneering contributions to gaming, data centers, and AI-driven applications. NVDA’s technological solutions are developed around a platform strategy that combines hardware, systems, software, algorithms, and services to provide distinctive value. The chipmaker has a market cap of $5.49 trillion, making it the world’s most valuable company.
Shares of the AI darling have climbed 23% on a year-to-date (YTD) basis as relentless spending on AI infrastructure continues to drive demand for the company’s GPUs, networking equipment, and increasingly its CPUs. The latest boost to NVDA stock came on Monday, when the company announced a $150 billion increase to its share-repurchase program, pushing the stock within striking distance of its record high.
www.barchart.com Akamai’s $11.6 Billion Anthropic Deal Could Be a Hidden Win for Nvidia
On Sept. 24, cloud infrastructure company Akamai Technologies significantly expanded its partnership with frontier AI lab Anthropic. Akamai said Anthropic committed to spending $11.6 billion over seven years on dedicated cloud capacity and related services to support its growing CPU workloads. The agreement also gives Anthropic the option to commit an additional $9 billion if certain conditions are met, which would bring the total value to about $20 billion.
Again, unlike most AI cloud contracts, which center on GPUs, this deal is focused on CPUs, the chips used for general-purpose computing rather than the specialized workloads handled by GPUs. GF Securities said the deal underscores the growing importance of CPUs in AI workloads. And, more importantly, the firm suggested that the deal could have another major beneficiary: Nvidia.
“The deal is expected to be on Nvidia’s Vera CPUs, which Akamai previously disclosed as its planned platform for agentic workloads,” according to GF Securities analyst Henry Huang. Indeed, when Nvidia unveiled Vera at GTC Taipei in May, it named Akamai among the leading cloud service providers planning to deploy the processors. Anthropic itself provides another reason to think Vera could be involved in the deal.
Nvidia said at GTC Taipei that Anthropic was among the AI labs planning to adopt Vera, and the chipmaker added in an August blog post that it had delivered Vera CPU systems to Anthropic. Vera was designed specifically for agentic workloads such as tool use, code execution, data processing, and reinforcement-learning environments—the kind of CPU-intensive tasks that are becoming increasingly important as AI agents scale.
The Bigger Nvidia Takeaway From Akamai’s Anthropic Deal Is Strategic
The next key question is what exactly the Akamai-Anthropic deal means for Nvidia. Well, let’s take a closer look.
Akamai expects roughly $5.5 billion in capital expenditures tied to Anthropic’s commitment, including an additional $1.7 billion in 2026 to secure and pre-purchase critical supply-chain components. It is worth noting that not all of that spending will go toward Nvidia’s CPUs, as Akamai will also need to purchase memory, ABF substrates, and other components. But even if the entire amount were allocated to Nvidia’s CPUs, it would still be relatively small, particularly compared with the $109 billion in revenue analysts expect Nvidia to generate in the current quarter.
Still, the strategic implications may matter more than the revenue contribution. Nvidia has historically dominated AI through GPUs, but agentic AI also requires CPUs to execute tools, run code, and process data between model calls. If Vera gains traction with Anthropic, Akamai, and other infrastructure providers, Nvidia could capture a larger share of the overall AI-compute stack rather than primarily the accelerator layer. And Nvidia believes Vera is positioned to do just that.
Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said on the Q2 earnings call last month that trailing-12-month revenue from Grace CPUs had already exceeded $5 billion, while next-generation Vera was in full production. Kress said Nvidia expects Vera to be deployed by every major hyperscaler, neocloud, AI lab, and system OEM, adding that the company continues to see demand for roughly $20 billion of server CPUs. She also said Nvidia preliminarily expects CPU revenue to more than double year-over-year (YoY) in fiscal 2028.
With that, the Akamai-Anthropic deal may be more significant as a validation of Nvidia’s emerging CPU opportunity than as a near-term revenue driver. If Vera adoption broadens as Nvidia expects, CPUs could become a much larger contributor to growth and further strengthen the company’s position across the full AI compute stack.
What Do Analysts Expect for NVDA Stock?
NVDA stock continues to hold a top-tier “Strong Buy” consensus rating on Wall Street. Of the 50 analysts covering the stock, 46 rate it a “Strong Buy,” three assign a “Moderate Buy,” and one rates it a “Strong Sell.” The mean price target for NVDA stock is $326.90, implying 43% upside from current levels.
www.barchart.com On the date of publication, Oleksandr Pylypenko had a position in: NVDA . All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
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