Akamai Soars on $11.6 Billion Anthropic Deal; Costco Beats

Microsoft has launched a new version of its Copilot AI assistant that merges the consumer and workplace products into a single offering aimed at corporate customers, with three modes — chat, code, and autopilot — and roughly 30 million customers so far, CEO Satya Nadella told Yahoo Finance's Deirdre Bosa in an interview. Nadella said the autopilot mode, which connects to a user's apps, email and workflows and acts as a personal assistant, represents the next generation of enterprise automation and will roll out in the coming weeks, though he cautioned that token costs mean "once the subsidies stop for everybody" the business model must be justified by customer return on investment. On China, Nadella said it is in both countries' interests to agree on norms, including a direct notification channel between presidents in the event of a cybersecurity attack, following this week's Trump-Xi summit. Separately, Costco reported quarterly profit above Wall Street estimates with earnings per share of 695 cents, including 15 cents from $184 million in tariff refunds, while comparable sales rose 6.7%. Akamai announced a $12 billion computing deal with Anthropic, building on a $1.8 billion agreement earlier in the year, with warrants giving Anthropic the right to buy Series B shares at $113.33 each that convert into 7.7 million common shares. Tesla confirmed high-volume production of its Semi had begun at its Sparks, Nevada factory and announced a 2,500-truck order from a coalition of shipping companies including PepsiCo, which Fast Company called the largest US order for electric heavy-duty trucks.

Anthropic is partnering with Akamai in a $12 billion computing deal, building on a $1.8 billion computing deal the two companies struck earlier in the year. The agreement is Akamai's biggest deal on record and a huge catalyst for the company, which is pivoting from its traditional content-delivery business toward AI infrastructure. Cloud infrastructure services, the segment the new deal falls under, accounted for just 7% of Akamai's sales last year, when overall sales were just over $4 billion and security made up the large bulk of the business. As part of the structure, Anthropic receives a warrant giving it the right to buy Series B shares at $113.33 each, which then convert into 7.7 million shares of common stock, making Anthropic a potential investor in Akamai. Under the deal, Akamai will give Anthropic access to CPUs.

Akamai Technologies surged 21.3% in premarket trading after announcing a seven-year, $11.6 billion cloud services commitment from AI company Anthropic, designed to support Anthropic's growing CPU workload demands across Akamai Cloud's distributed infrastructure. The deal includes provisions allowing the relationship to expand by up to an additional $9 billion, potentially taking the total commitment to about $20 billion, and Akamai also disclosed a hardware supply agreement with Lenovo and authorized contract manufacturer Jabil to procure about $1.7 billion in memory components. People Incorporated rose 6.5% in premarket trading after The Wall Street Journal reported that MGM Resorts International is weighing a potential takeover bid for Barry Diller's media conglomerate, with an offer potentially coming within days, just one day after People Incorporated withdrew its own $48.30-per-share cash proposal to acquire MGM's remaining public shares. Select Water Solutions rose 5.5% after announcing a definitive agreement to acquire Pilot Water Solutions for $700 million, plus up to $15 million in potential contingent consideration, in a transaction including $600 million in cash and $100 million in Class A common stock. Prime Medicine climbed 11.7% in after-hours trading to $3.49 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared its Investigational New Drug application for PM647, an investigational in vivo Prime Editor designed to correct the E342K mutation in the SERPINA1 gene, the root cause of Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, paving the way for a global first-in-human Phase 1/2 clinical trial. On the downside, Comcast slipped 1.6% in premarket trading to $21.77 after KeyBanc downgraded the stock to Underweight from Sector Weight with an $18 price target, Twilio fell 3.7% after HSBC downgraded it to Reduce from Hold with a $211 price target, Zscaler fell 3.6% after naming Ross Tackett Chief Revenue Officer effective Oct. 1, succeeding Mike Rich, and Scholastic tumbled 11% after reporting fiscal first-quarter 2027 results that missed expectations, with revenue down 3.9% year over year to $216.8 million and an adjusted loss per share of $3.63.