The company was named after akamai, which means 'clever,' or more colloquially, 'cool' in Hawaiian. Co-founder Daniel M. Lewin found the term in a Hawaiian-English dictionary after a colleague's suggestion.[7]
Akamai Technologies entered the 1998 MIT $50K competition with a business proposition based on their research on consistent hashing,[8] and was selected as one of the finalists.[9] By August 1998, they had developed a working prototype, and with the help of Jonathan Seelig and Randall Kaplan, they took steps to incorporate the company.[10] Akamai Technologies was incorporated on August 20, 1998.[11]
In late 1998 and early 1999, a group of business professionals and scientists joined the founding team—most notably, Paul Sagan, former president of New Media for Time Inc., and George Conrades, former chairman and chief executive officer of BBN Corp. and senior vice president of US operations for IBM. Conrades became chief executive officer of Akamai in April 1999.[12][13][14] The company launched its commercial service in April 1999 and was listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market from October 29, 1999.[15]
Arabic news network Al-Jazeera was an Akamai customer from March 28, 2003 to April 2, 2003, when Akamai decided to end the relationship,[18] which the network's English-language managing editor claimed was due to "political pressure".[19]
In 2005, Paul Sagan was named chief executive officer of Akamai, taking over from Conrades. Sagan worked to differentiate Akamai from its competitors by expanding its breadth of services.[14] Under his leadership, it grew to $1.37billion in revenue.[20]
In July 2007, Akamai was added to the S&P 500 Index.[21]
In 2013, co-founder Tom Leighton was elected chief executive officer, replacing Sagan.[22]
In 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged a former executive at Akamai Technologies for illegally tipping non-public information about the company's financial predicament as part of the insider trading scheme operated by now-imprisoned Galleon Management hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam.[23] In 2014 it was reported that the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation used Facebook's Akamai CDN to collect information on Facebook users.[24]
On February 9, 2021, Akamai announced it would reorganize into two internal groups, Security Technology and Edge Technology. It also re-established the role of chief technology officer, and named Robert Blumofe to that role.[25] Long-time chief security officer (CSO) Andy Ellis announced he would leave in March 2021.[26]
Akamai's headquarters are in Kendall Square. It started in Technology Square and later expanded to multiple buildings in Cambridge Center. It consolidated its offices in a purpose-built building at 145 Broadway in December 2019.[27]
In February 2025, Akamai was chosen as the strategic cloud computing provider by one of the world's largest technology companies, with a multi-year commitment to spend over $100 million on cloud infrastructure services.[28] The company's cloud infrastructure services primarily consist of compute and storage solutions developed based on Linode, a cloud hosting provider acquired by Akamai for $900 million in 2022.[29][30]
Akamai Intelligent Edge Platform
The Akamai Intelligent Platform[31] is a distributed cloud computing platform that operates worldwide, a network of over approximately 365,000 servers in more than 135 countries.[32] These servers reside on roughly 1,350 of the world's networks, gathering real-time information about traffic, congestion, and trouble spots.[32] Each Akamai server is equipped with proprietary software that uses complex algorithms to process requests from nearby users.[31]
The content delivery process begins with a user submitting a request to a browser. When a user enters a URL, a DNS request is triggered to Akamai's authoritative DNS[33] and an IP address is retrieved. With the IP address, the browser can then directly contact the Akamai edge server for subsequent requests.[34] In a content delivery network (CDN) structure, the domain name of the URL is translated by the mapping system[35] into the IP address of an edge server to serve the content to the user.[31]
Akamai delivers web content over its Intelligent Platform by transparently mirroring elements such as HTML, CSS, software downloads, and media objects from customers' servers. The Akamai server is automatically chosen depending on the type of content and the user's network location. The servers are located in more than 200 countries and territories.[36] Receiving content from a server nearer to the user allows for faster downloads and less vulnerability to network congestion. Akamai claims to provide better scalability by delivering the content over the last mile from servers close to end-users, avoiding the middle-mile bottleneck of the Internet.[37] The Download Delivery product line includes HTTP downloads for large downloadable objects, a customizable application for consumers, and analytics tools with metrics that monitor and report on the download process.[38]
Peer-to-peer networking
In addition to using its own servers, Akamai delivers certain content from other end-users' computers, in the form of peer-to-peer networking.[39][40]
OPEN Initiative
On October 9, 2013, Akamai announced its Open Initiative at the 2013 Akamai Edge Conference. OPEN allows customers and partners to develop and customize how they interact with the Akamai Intelligent Platform. Its key components include system and development operations integration, real-time big data integration, and a single-point user interface.[41]
Acquisitions
On February 10, 2000, Akamai acquired Network24 Communications[42] for 621,000 shares of common stock and $12.5million in cash.[43]
On April 20, 2000,[43] Akamai acquired InterVU Inc.[44] for 10.0million shares of common stock.
On July 25, 2000, Akamai acquired CallTheShots, Inc., for an aggregate purchase price of $3.7million.[43]
On June 10, 2005, Akamai acquired Speedera Networks, Inc. for 10.6million shares of Akamai common stock and options to purchase 1.7million shares of Akamai common stock.[45]
On December 13, 2006, Akamai acquired Nine Systems, Inc.,[46] for an aggregate purchase price of $157.5million.[47]
On March 13, 2007, Akamai acquired Netli Inc. (Netli),[48] for an aggregate purchase price of $154.4million.
On April 12, 2007, Akamai acquired Red Swoosh Inc.[49] for an aggregate purchase price of $18.7million.[50]
On November 3, 2008, Akamai acquired aCerno Inc.,[50] for an aggregate purchase price of $90.8million.[51]
On June 10, 2010, Akamai acquired Velocitude LLC,[52] for an aggregate purchase price of $12million.[53]
On February 7, 2012, Akamai acquired Blaze Software, Inc.,[54] for an aggregate purchase price of $19.3million.[55]
On March 6, 2012, Akamai acquired Cotendo, Inc.,[54] for an aggregate purchase price of $278.9million.[56]
On September 13, 2012, Akamai acquired FastSoft, Inc.,[54] for an aggregate purchase price of $14.4million.[57]
On December 4, 2012, Akamai acquired Verivue, Inc.,[54] for an aggregate purchase price of $30.9million.[58]
On November 8, 2013, Akamai acquired Velocius Networks[59] for an aggregate purchase price of $4.3million.[60]
In February 2015, Akamai acquired Xerocole Inc., a domain name system technology company.[62]
On April 6, 2015, Akamai acquired Octoshape, a cloud OTT IPTV service provider,[63] for an undisclosed amount.[64]
On November 2, 2015, Akamai acquired Bloxx, a provider of Secure Web Gateway (SWG) technology,[65] for an undisclosed amount.[66]
On September 28, 2016, Akamai acquired Concord Systems, a provider of technology for the high performance processing of data at scale,[67] for an undisclosed amount.[68]
On October 4, 2016, Akamai acquired Soha Systems, an enterprise secure access delivered as a service provider,[69] for an undisclosed amount.[70]
On December 19, 2016, Akamai acquired Cyberfend, a bot and automation detection solutions provider,[71] for an undisclosed amount.[72]
On March 29, 2017, Akamai acquired SOASTA, a digital performance management company based in Mountain View, CA, for an undisclosed all-cash amount.[73]
On October 11, 2017, Akamai acquired Nominum, a carrier-grade DNS and DHCP provider and one of the major players in the creation of the modern DNS, for an undisclosed all-cash amount.[74]
On January 24, 2019, Akamai acquired CIAM provider Janrain.[75]
In October 2019, Akamai agreed to acquire security software provider ChameleonX for $20million.[76][77]
On October 27, 2020, Akamai acquired IoT and mobile security provider Asavie.[78]
On September 29, 2021, Akamai Technologies acquired Guardicore for $600million.[80]
On February 15, 2022, Akamai acquired Linode for $900million.[81]
On May 7, 2024, Akamai announced its intent to acquire API Security vendor Noname Security for $450 million.[82] The deal was completed on June 25, 2024.[83]
Key scientific publications
These papers in scientific conferences and journals describe Akamai's technology in greater detail:
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US$3.99 billion (2024)
US$533 million (2024)
