Why Did Akamai Acquire Thousands of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs?
Akamai is bringing low latency, real-time AI inference to the edge by deploying thousands of NVIDIA GPUs across its distributed cloud infrastructure
TL;DR
- Akamai is acquiring and deploying thousands of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs across its distributed cloud infrastructure.
- The company aims to bring low-latency, real-time AI inference to the edge.
- This strategy contrasts with hyperscale providers by embedding AI capacity within Akamai's 4,000+ edge locations.
- The focus is on AI inference, where trained models are used in real-world applications.
- Akamai expects to reduce latency by up to 2.5 times and lower bandwidth costs.
- The deployment will support use cases like autonomous machines, digital health, industrial automation, and fraud detection.
- Akamai claims this approach can save businesses up to 86% on AI inference compared to traditional hyperscale infrastructure.
- The platform offers scalable GPU access for developers and predictable performance for enterprises, with potential benefits for data sovereignty and compliance.