Akamai Takes Cloud Computing to the Edge

Rhea-AI Summary

Akamai Technologies introduces Gecko, a cloud computing initiative to enhance user experiences by bringing workloads closer to users, devices, and data sources. The move aligns with the increasing demand for distributed cloud services and aims to revolutionize cloud architectures for modern applications.

Insights

Market Research Analyst

The announcement of Akamai Technologies' initiative, code-named Gecko, represents a significant shift in the cloud computing landscape. By embedding cloud capabilities into its edge network, Akamai is positioning itself to cater to a growing demand for distributed cloud services. The move aligns with the findings from a ClearPath Strategies study, indicating that IT decision-makers are increasingly relying on distributed cloud services.

From a market perspective, this initiative could potentially disrupt the competitive dynamics within the cloud industry. Akamai's strategy to integrate edge computing with cloud services is likely to attract enterprises seeking to enhance performance and reduce latency in their applications. This could lead to a re-evaluation of market shares among leading cloud service providers, as Akamai leverages its extensive edge network to offer a differentiated service.

Furthermore, the focus on sectors such as AI inferencing, gaming and streaming suggests that Akamai is targeting high-growth industries. The ability to process data closer to the source could give Akamai a competitive edge in these sectors, potentially translating into increased market penetration and revenue growth.

Financial Analyst

Akamai's Gecko initiative could have notable financial implications for the company and its investors. By expanding its services to include distributed cloud computing, Akamai is tapping into a market with significant growth potential. The investment in Gecko is likely to be substantial, but if successful, it could lead to a new revenue stream that diversifies Akamai's income sources beyond traditional content delivery networks (CDNs).

Investors should monitor the early trials of Gecko with enterprise customers closely, as these will provide critical indicators of the initiative's potential success. Positive feedback and adoption rates could signal future financial gains. Conversely, any setbacks in these trials could delay the project and impact expected revenues. Additionally, the move to edge computing could result in cost savings for Akamai in the long run, as it might reduce reliance on centralized data centers and associated costs.

The long-term financial impact will also depend on the company's ability to scale Gecko and secure a foothold in the emerging markets for immersive retail, spatial computing and IoT. The ability to execute and maintain a competitive edge will be crucial for Akamai's financial performance in the face of stiff competition from established cloud providers.

Technology Analyst

The technological implications of Akamai's Gecko initiative are profound, as it seeks to redefine the architecture of cloud computing by merging it with edge capabilities. The traditional separation between cloud and edge networks is being challenged by Gecko's approach to enable generalized compute across Akamai's edge network. This architectural innovation could lead to a new paradigm where full-stack computing is available in locations previously considered out of reach for traditional cloud providers.

For developers and IT professionals, the prospect of deploying heavier workloads at the edge represents a significant advancement. It could alleviate the challenges associated with latency and bandwidth, particularly for applications requiring real-time processing. By providing a consistent experience across the compute continuum, Akamai could simplify the development process and enhance the performance of modern applications.

However, the success of this technological shift will depend on the robustness of Akamai's existing network and the effectiveness of its tools, processes and observability. The integration of edge computing into Akamai's services will need to be seamless to gain widespread adoption and to truly disrupt current cloud architectures.

New initiative, code-named Gecko, accelerates Akamai's build-out of the world's most distributed cloud computing platform

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud company that powers and protects life online, today unveiled plans to embed cloud computing capabilities into its massive edge network. Akamai's Generalized Edge Compute (Gecko) advances Akamai's strategy to be the cloud computing platform for companies that want to deliver better experiences by running workloads closer to users, devices, and sources of data.

Akamai's move comes at an exciting juncture for the technology industry. In a worldwide study conducted in 2023, ClearPath Strategies found that two-thirds of IT decision-makers said their use of distributed cloud services is expected to increase over the next 12 months. More than one-third of respondents said the benefits of distributed cloud — including the ability to process and analyze AI and machine learning data quickly and efficiently — are mission critical to their IT strategy.

The new initiative is the latest move in Akamai's multiyear strategy to become a key platform in enterprise multicloud environments. It is another step in the company's vision for a new kind of cloud designed to meet the needs of modern applications that require higher performance, lower latency, and true global scalability that current cloud architectures were not built to provide.

Akamai has been conducting early trials of Gecko with several of its enterprise customers. The company anticipates that customers in AI inferencing, multiplayer gaming, and social and streaming media are best positioned to take advantage of the power of Gecko. Akamai sees future use cases in areas such as immersive retail, spatial computing, data analytics, and consumer and industrial IoT.

Current industry architectures treat cloud and edge networks separately. Gecko is designed to enable generalized compute to be deployed on top of Akamai's existing worldwide edge network, taking advantage of existing tools, processes, and observability to provide a consistent experience across the entire continuum of compute from cloud to edge. Gecko will move heavier, traditional compute — usually confined to centralized data centers — to the edge of Akamai's network. This will bring full-stack computing to hundreds of previously hard-to-reach locations, allowing customers to move workloads closer to their users.

By injecting cloud computing into places that traditional cloud providers have struggled to reach, developers will no longer have to think about building for the cloud or building for the edge. As developers demand more from their cloud and edge providers, Akamai's plan is to unlock opportunities to innovate across the entire continuum of compute by driving the convergence necessary to put cloud computing power at the edge — convergence not possible before Gecko.

"Gecko is the most exciting thing to happen to the cloud in a decade," said Dr. Tom Leighton, Akamai Co-Founder and CEO. "It's the next phase of the roadmap toward a more connected cloud we laid out when we acquired Linode to add cost-effective, cloud-native computing capabilities to our portfolio. We began delivering on that roadmap with the launch of Akamai Connected Cloud and the rapid rollout of new core computing regions around the world. With Gecko, we're furthering that vision by combining the computing power of our cloud platform with the proximity and efficiency of the edge, to put workloads closer to users than any other cloud provider. When we say we operate at planetary scale, this is what we mean."

Akamai Connected Cloud: The World's Most Distributed Cloud Platform
The scale of Akamai's network, comprising 4,100 points of presence around the globe, makes Akamai Connected Cloud the world's most distributed cloud platform. Akamai's 25 years of experience managing massively distributed, fully automated, highly efficient, and exceptionally reliable networks puts it in a unique position among the world's top cloud providers. Hyperscalers have dominated the market based on a decade-old centralized cloud model that emphasized scale-up compute power at the expense of reach. Smaller edge and CDN providers focused on scale-out reach in exchange for compute power. By adding Linode to its network and building out more core computing regions over the past year, Akamai has transformed Akamai Connected Cloud into the most distributed cloud computing platform on the planet. Akamai anticipates that the ability to harness the power of both the cloud and the edge will give it an advantage as the industry faces increasing demand to deliver better price performance, lower latency, and more robust security for applications and data, built and deployed across a wider continuum of compute. This advantage, combined with Akamai's deep experience in distributed networking, is intended to give customers access to a more powerful, portable, easier-to-use, and lower-cost cloud.

"Akamai is delivering on the promise it made when it acquired Linode by quickly integrating compute into its security and delivery mix," said Dave McCarthy, IDC, Research Vice President, Cloud and Edge Services. "What they're now doing with Gecko is an example of the more distributed cloud world we're heading toward, driven by demands to put compute and data closer to the edge."

Akamai's Gecko Roadmap: Putting Compute in Hard-to-Reach Locations
Akamai is rolling out a fast-paced, but pragmatic, roadmap for Gecko. In its first phase, announced today, Akamai aims to embed compute with support for virtual machines into 100 cities by the end of the year. Already, in 2024, Akamai has deployed new Gecko-architected regions in Hong Kong SAR; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Querétaro, Mexico; and Johannesburg, South Africa, as well as in cities without a concentrated hyperscaler presence, including Bogotá, Colombia; Denver, Colorado; Houston, Texas; Hamburg, Germany; and Marseille, France. Deployment of a 10th Gecko region in Santiago, Chile, is planned by the end of the first quarter. Beyond these 10 new Gecko locations and its existing 25 core computing regions, Akamai intends to add hundreds of cities to its global cloud computing footprint over the next several years.

In the second phase of Gecko, which is expected to kick off later this year, the company plans to add containers to the mix. In Gecko's third phase, Akamai plans to add automated workload orchestration to make it easier for developers to build applications across hundreds of distributed locations, with the end goal of creating a consistent user experience between each core computing region and the edge.

About Akamai
Akamai powers and protects life online. Leading companies worldwide choose Akamai to build, deliver, and secure their digital experiences — helping billions of people live, work, and play every day. Akamai Connected Cloud, a massively distributed edge and cloud platform, puts apps and experiences closer to users and keeps threats farther away. Learn more about Akamai's cloud computing, security, and content delivery solutions at akamai.com and akamai.com/blog, or follow Akamai Technologies on X, formerly Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
This release contains statements that are not statements of historical fact and constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements about expected future performance, expectations, plans, and prospects of Akamai. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to failure of our investments in innovation to generate solutions that are accepted in the market; inability to increase our revenue at the same rate as in the past and keep our expenses from increasing at a greater rate than our revenues; effects of competition, including pricing pressure and changing business models; impact of macroeconomic trends, including economic uncertainty, turmoil in the financial services industry, the effects of inflation, rising and fluctuating interest rates, foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, securities market volatility and monetary supply fluctuations; conditions and uncertainties in the geopolitical environment, including sanctions and disruptions resulting from the ongoing war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas War; supply chain and logistics costs, constraints, changes, or disruptions; defects or disruptions in our products or IT systems, including cyber-attacks, data breaches, or malware; failure to realize the expected benefits of any of our acquisitions or reorganizations; changes to economic, political, and regulatory conditions in the United States and internationally; our ability to attract and retain key personnel; delay in developing or failure to develop new service offerings or functionalities, and if developed, lack of market acceptance of such service offerings and functionalities or failure of such solutions to operate as expected, and other factors that are discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents filed with the SEC.

In addition, the statements in this press release represent Akamai's expectations and beliefs as of the date of this press release. Akamai anticipates that subsequent events and developments may cause these expectations and beliefs to change. However, while Akamai may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, it specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Akamai's expectations or beliefs as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Contacts

Chris Nicholson
Akamai Media Relations
+1.508.517.3703 
cnichols@akamai.com

Tom Barth
Akamai Investor Relations
+1.617.274.7130 
tbarth@akamai.com

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SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.

FAQ

What is the code name of Akamai's new cloud computing initiative?

The code name of Akamai's new cloud computing initiative is Gecko.

What is the ticker symbol for Akamai Technologies?

The ticker symbol for Akamai Technologies is AKAM.

What are the potential future use cases of Akamai's Gecko initiative?

Potential future use cases of Akamai's Gecko initiative include immersive retail, spatial computing, data analytics, and consumer and industrial IoT.

How does Gecko differentiate from traditional cloud architectures?

Gecko enables generalized compute on top of Akamai's edge network, bringing full-stack computing to previously hard-to-reach locations and allowing customers to move workloads closer to their users.