Akamai Bets Big on AI Inference Cloud as Security Takes a Back Seat
Akamai is projecting 45-50% cloud growth in 2026 and pushing hard into AI inference with NVIDIA GPUs. The security business that built this company is now "Act 2" in a three-act strategy. What does that mean for WAF customers?
Akamai has been on a conference tour this month, and the message is clear: AI inference is the future, and the company is going all in. CEO Tom Leighton laid it out at the Raymond James conference on March 4, followed by CFO Ed McGowan doing the same at Morgan Stanley's TMT conference the next day.
The company posted Q4 2025 revenue of $1.095 billion, up 7% year over year. But the real story is where the growth is coming from. Cloud Infrastructure Services (CIS) is projected to grow 45-50% in 2026. Security, the segment that includes Akamai App & API Protector, is still a $2+ billion business, but it is no longer the headline act.
Act 3: GPU-as-a-service
Akamai is framing its evolution in three acts. Act 1 was CDN, the business that made them a household name in web performance. Act 2 was security, where they built one of the largest WAF and DDoS protection platforms in the market. Act 3 is cloud computing and AI inference.
The Akamai Inference Cloud, launched in Q4 2025, runs on NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and is designed for low-latency AI inference at the edge. Think autonomous vehicles, industrial robots, smart city infrastructure. The pitch is that running inference closer to users through Akamai's distributed network beats centralized cloud for real-time AI workloads.
Security is not going anywhere (but it is not growing fast)
The security business is still massive and still profitable. Akamai remains one of the top enterprise WAF providers, and the partnership with Apiiro announced last quarter adds application security posture management to the stack. The product is not being abandoned.
But the investment narrative has shifted. When your cloud segment is growing 45-50% and your security segment is growing in the single digits, the board knows where to point the budget. Security customers should watch for signs that R&D resources are being redirected toward AI infrastructure.
WAFplanet take
Akamai chasing AI inference makes strategic sense. Their distributed edge network is a genuine advantage for low-latency workloads, and the GPU-as-a-service market is enormous. But WAF customers should pay attention to the priorities.
When a company talks about security as "Act 2" while pouring resources into "Act 3," that is a signal. It does not mean the WAF product gets worse tomorrow, but it does mean the pace of innovation might slow relative to pure-play security vendors like Cloudflare or Imperva who do not have an AI cloud distraction.
If you are an Akamai WAF customer, the product still works. But keep an eye on the roadmap. Companies that split focus between security and AI infrastructure rarely excel at both.
