CDN market to reach $77.4B by 2033 amid AI infrastructure surge

The transition from passive content storage to active edge computing is fundamentally altering the video delivery stack. As streaming platforms integrate generative AI and real-time analytics, CDNs must evolve into execution environments that process data proximity to the end-user rather than just serving static assets. This shifts the competitive landscape toward providers with superior serverless runtimes and automated threat detection. For the ecosystem, the reliability of distributed infrastructure is now a matter of digital sovereignty and resilience. Watch for how many Tier-1 broadcasters migrate toward multi-cloud CDN strategies to mitigate vendor concentration risks following high-profile infrastructure exits.

The 2026 CDN landscape is defined by a shift from raw delivery speed to complex architectural integration. Per Akamai’s Q1 2026 earnings report in May, the company saw a 40% year-over-year surge in Cloud Infrastructure Services (CIS), contrast by a 7% decline in traditional delivery revenue. CEO Tom Leighton highlighted a landmark $1.8 billion, seven-year commitment from a frontier AI model provider for its infrastructure services, signaling that the largest revenue opportunities now lie in supporting the AI economy rather than just video bits.

Simultaneously, the industry is recalibrating following the liquidation of Edgio. Per ElevenFlo and court filings in early 2026, Edgio’s CDN operations officially ceased in January 2025 after a Chapter 11 process, forcing major customers like Amazon Prime Video and Microsoft Azure to migrate to rivals. Akamai acquired several hundred of these customer contracts for $125 million, while the Uplynk streaming platform emerged as an independent entity under Lynrock ownership. This exit has sharpened procurement focus on vendor stability and 'exit risk' for bandwidth-heavy enterprises.

Competitors like Fastly and Cloudflare are doubling down on 'agentic' traffic. Per Fastly research from June 2026, AI-generated traffic on its network grew 30% in the first five months of the year, expanding 6.5 times faster than human-driven traffic. Cloudflare was recently named a leader in Forrester's Q1 2026 Edge Development Platforms report, specifically cited for its 'AI Gateway' and 'agent-first' development ecosystem. These shifts indicate that the next generation of CDN growth will be dictated by how effectively networks can manage automated fetchers and crawlers that now represent over 50% of origin-access requests.