Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) is getting a jolt of Wall Street adrenaline on Monday, December 15, 2025, with the stock rising about 4% in intraday trading. Shares were recently around $89.33, up roughly $3.45 from the prior close.
The day’s move is being widely tied to a notable analyst reversal: KeyBanc double-upgraded Akamai to Overweight from Underweight and lifted its price target to $115 from $66, arguing that Akamai’s revenue profile can accelerate as the business continues shifting toward compute. [1]
That framing matters because Akamai’s investment narrative has been evolving in public view: from “legacy CDN giant” to a company trying to build a second (and third) act around cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and edge computing—including AI workloads that increasingly want to run closer to users.
What’s driving AKAM stock today
The market catalyst is straightforward: a big upgrade with a big target increase, delivered at a moment when investors are hunting for “real revenue” ways to play compute and AI without paying peak AI-mania multiples.
KeyBanc’s argument (as summarized across multiple reports) has a few key components:
- Compute is the swing factor. The firm said Akamai’s revenue “has the opportunity to accelerate” as more of the business shifts toward compute capabilities, even while it remains cautious on the Delivery segment. [2]
- GPU capacity can be monetized. KeyBanc highlighted Akamai’s NVIDIA GPU partnership as a positive factor, suggesting that simply having capacity can attract demand from AI companies searching for available compute resources—without requiring “near-edge inference” to fully arrive in 2026. [3]
- KeyBanc owned the “we were early” mea culpa. The firm acknowledged it was “wrong early,” noting AKAM’s performance since its coverage launch this year and pointing to broader upward revisions across the analyst community for the upcoming period. [4]
In short: today’s price action is a classic “analyst re-rate” day—especially when the upgrade directly reinforces the market’s favorite theme (compute/AI) while offering a story that’s not purely hype-dependent.
The bigger picture: Akamai’s pivot from delivery to security + cloud + edge compute
If you only remember Akamai as a content delivery network (CDN) workhorse for video and web acceleration, you’re not wrong—but you’re also not seeing the full current revenue mix.
In its most recently reported quarter (Q3 2025, reported Nov. 6, 2025), Akamai posted:
- Revenue:$1.055 billion, up 5% year over year (and up 4% adjusted for FX). [5]
- Security revenue:$568 million, up 10% year over year. [6]
- Delivery revenue:$306 million, down 4% year over year. [7]
- Cloud computing revenue:$180 million, up 8% year over year. [8]
- Within that, Cloud Infrastructure Services revenue was $81 million, up a striking 39% year over year. [9]
That split is exactly why “compute” keeps showing up in analyst notes: Akamai’s faster-growing pieces (security and cloud infrastructure services) are increasingly doing the narrative heavy lifting, while the more mature delivery business is treated as a cash-flow engine that may not grow much (or could decline) unless demand dynamics improve.
Company guidance: the forecast Akamai itself is standing behind
Beyond analyst targets, the most important “forecast” on any given day is often the one issued by the company.
Alongside Q3 results, Akamai provided Q4 2025 and full-year 2025 guidance:
Q4 2025 guidance
- Revenue: $1.065B to $1.085B
- Non-GAAP EPS: $1.65 to $1.85 [10]
Full-year 2025 guidance
- Revenue: $4.178B to $4.198B
- Non-GAAP EPS: $6.93 to $7.13 [11]
Those ranges matter for two reasons:
- they help define what “execution” means for Akamai heading into year-end, and
- they set the baseline for the next major catalyst: Q4 earnings and 2026 outlook.
Why analysts keep circling “edge AI”: Akamai Inference Cloud + NVIDIA
Akamai is explicitly positioning itself as a platform for AI workloads that need low latency and distributed placement—in other words, workloads where “cloud region only” can be too slow, too far away, or too expensive.
In its Q3 2025 release, Akamai said it launched Akamai Inference Cloud, describing it as powered by NVIDIA AI infrastructure and designed to enable secure, low-latency AI performance at the edge. [12]
KeyBanc’s upgrade leans into the pragmatic version of that story: AI doesn’t have to become fully edge-native overnight for Akamai to monetize compute. If customers simply need GPU access at reasonable economics—and Akamai can deliver that with its distributed footprint—then revenue can show up sooner than the “sci‑fi future” timelines. [13]
Recent Akamai news that reinforces the compute narrative
Today’s upgrade didn’t arrive in a vacuum. Several recent Akamai announcements align with the idea that the company is building out an edge compute and enterprise-grade cloud/security stack.
Fermyon acquisition: serverless WebAssembly for edge-native apps
On Dec. 1, 2025, Akamai announced it acquired Fermyon, a serverless WebAssembly company, with the stated goal of simplifying deployment of AI and other functions at the edge. Akamai also said it anticipates no material impact to its 2025 financial guidance from the transaction. [14]
For investors, the relevance is less “acquisition buzz” and more “platform direction.” WebAssembly-based serverless is a way to run lightweight workloads efficiently—exactly the kind of plumbing that makes edge computing more real and less marketing.
FedRAMP High Ready: a credibility stamp for public sector cloud work
On Dec. 3, 2025, Akamai said its cloud service achieved FedRAMP High Ready status, aimed at supporting U.S. federal agencies handling sensitive data. [15]
That kind of compliance milestone doesn’t usually move a stock in a single session, but it can expand the addressable market for cloud services over time—especially for customers who require strict security baselines.
Zuplo + AccuWeather: API delivery and monetization
On Dec. 2, 2025, Akamai announced a partnership with Zuplo tied to AccuWeather, focused on accelerating API delivery and monetization using Akamai’s edge platform and Zuplo’s API gateway capabilities. [16]
This is another “picks and shovels” signal: APIs are the connective tissue of modern apps, and security/performance at the edge is increasingly where enterprise buyers spend.
Performance check: AKAM vs. the Nasdaq (and a key peer)
Even with today’s pop, not everyone is treating Akamai as a market leader over the longer window.
A Barchart analysis dated Dec. 15, 2025 notes that:
- AKAM is down 14.1% over the past 52 weeks, lagging the Nasdaq Composite’s gain over the same period.
- On a year-to-date basis, AKAM is down 10.2%, versus a Nasdaq gain year-to-date.
- Over the last three months, however, AKAM is up 11.8%, outperforming the Nasdaq’s rise in that span. [17]
The same analysis highlights competitive context: it says Akamai significantly underperformed Cloudflare (NET) over the past 52 weeks and year-to-date—an uncomfortable comparison given how often investors mentally group the two. [18]
Forecasts and price targets: what “the Street” is implying right now
On a day like today, there are two forecast layers investors tend to watch:
1) The headline target driving today’s move
- KeyBanc:$115 price target (raised from $66) with an Overweight rating. [19]
2) The broader consensus range
- The Barchart piece dated today cites a “Moderate Buy” consensus from 22 analysts and a mean price target of $93.95, implying a modest premium to where the stock had been trading around publication time. [20]
- Investing.com’s summary of the KeyBanc note also references a wide spread of targets (it cites targets ranging from the mid-$60s to the low-$130s) and points to broad upward revisions for the upcoming period. [21]
The important nuance: consensus targets often move after the narrative shifts. If investors start believing Akamai can produce sustained compute acceleration (rather than episodic bumps), targets can drift upward. If delivery declines deepen or compute growth disappoints, targets can compress quickly.
What to watch next: the next earnings catalyst and the “2026 story”
Akamai’s next big moment is its Q4 earnings report and 2026 outlook.
MarketBeat lists Akamai’s next earnings date as estimated for Feb. 19, 2026, based on historical reporting patterns (and notes the company has not confirmed). [22]
When that report lands, expect the market to focus on a few high-voltage questions:
- Is Cloud Infrastructure Services growth still compounding at an exceptional rate? (It was up 39% year over year in Q3.) [23]
- Do security products keep growing at a double-digit clip? (Security revenue was up 10% in Q3.) [24]
- Does delivery stabilize, or keep sliding? (Delivery revenue was down 4% in Q3.) [25]
- How quickly can Akamai monetize GPU/AI inference demand, and what do margins look like? (This is where “AI excitement” meets “financial reality.”) [26]
The risk side of the ledger (because stocks are not fairy tales)
Today’s upgrade-driven rally doesn’t delete the core debates around Akamai:
- Delivery skepticism remains real. Even the bullish upgrade thesis explicitly keeps a skeptical posture on the Delivery segment. [27]
- Competitive pressure is intense. The market has rewarded some peers far more aggressively over the last year, and investors will demand evidence that Akamai’s compute/security growth can sustain a premium multiple. [28]
- Execution risk on platform expansion. Integrations (like Fermyon), compliance pushes (like FedRAMP), and new product bets (like Inference Cloud) can be powerful—but also take time, capital, and operational focus. [29]
Bottom line
Akamai Technologies (AKAM) stock is rallying on Dec. 15, 2025 as KeyBanc flips from skeptic to supporter, explicitly tying upside to accelerating compute growth and Akamai’s expanding role in GPU-enabled infrastructure. [30]
Whether the move has legs will depend less on today’s price target and more on whether Akamai can keep delivering the kind of segment performance it showed in Q3—security strength, cloud momentum, and meaningful growth in cloud infrastructure services—while proving that “edge AI” is a revenue engine, not just a slogan. [31]
References
1. www.investing.com, 2. www.investing.com, 3. www.investing.com, 4. www.investing.com, 5. www.akamai.com, 6. www.akamai.com, 7. www.akamai.com, 8. www.akamai.com, 9. www.akamai.com, 10. www.akamai.com, 11. www.akamai.com, 12. www.akamai.com, 13. www.investing.com, 14. www.akamai.com, 15. www.akamai.com, 16. www.akamai.com, 17. markets.financialcontent.com, 18. markets.financialcontent.com, 19. www.investing.com, 20. markets.financialcontent.com, 21. www.investing.com, 22. www.marketbeat.com, 23. www.akamai.com, 24. www.akamai.com, 25. www.akamai.com, 26. www.investing.com, 27. www.investing.com, 28. markets.financialcontent.com, 29. www.akamai.com, 30. www.investing.com, 31. www.akamai.com
