Akamai launched its Akamai App Platform, which aims to make it easier for developers to deploy cloud native applications on Kubernetes. Akamai's App Platform highlights how the company continues to transition to a security and cloud infrastructure company.
The Akamai App Platform is built on Kubernetes technology Otomi, which Akamai acquired from Red Kubes. The platform provides templates and tools to deploy, manage and scale Kubernetes clusters as well as frameworks and catalogs and a self-service environment.
Tom Leighton, CEO of Akamai, said the company hit two milestones during its recent third quarter. First, the company's annual revenue run rate topped $4 billion. And more than half of that was security. Akamai also showed cloud compute revenue growth of 28% in the third quarter.
We've documented Akamai's cloud ambitions previously:
- Akamai adds Nvidia GPUs to cloud network, initially targeting media
- Akamai launches Gecko, aims to combine cloud compute, and edge networks
- Akamai's IaaS vision: Become your cloud alternative
In the third quarter, Akamai said its compute revenue was $167 million, up 28% from a year ago. Overall, the company reported third quarter net income of $58 million on revenue of $1 billion. Security revenue and cloud revenue grew at double-digit rates, but Akamai's content delivery sales fell 16%. Non-GAAP earnings in the third quarter were $1.59 a share.
Leighton said:
"We continue to add new compute customers at a strong pace and we remain on track for our new enterprise compute solutions to exit the year with an annualized revenue run rate of more than $100 million. In Q3, we saw enterprise compute wins in the US at one of the largest retailers, one of the world's largest SaaS platforms, a large e-gaming platform, a large sports gaming platform, a nationwide passenger railroad and a global weather forecaster."
Leighton said retailers are using Akamai Connected Cloud to run mobile apps and AI workloads are revolving around image generation and processing, speech recognition, analytics and prediction and short-form video. See: Why generative AI workloads will be distributed locally
The Akamai App Platform is designed to acquire more workloads and position Akamai as an alternative IaaS providers with compute at the edge of networks. Leighton added that Akamai is selling cloud computing to more enterprises and a broader customer base.
Leighton added that Akamai's cloud compute unit is also seeing traction among independent software vendors across multiple industries.
However, Akamai needs to continue to invest in its cloud business. "We plan to shift more investment into the development of our cloud computing capabilities and new security products, as well as into the go-to-market resources and partner ecosystem to sell these services to a broader portion of the enterprise marketplace," said Leighton.
