Massachusetts Officials, Employees and Guests Gather to Celebrate the Opening of Akamai Technologies' New Kendall Square Global Headquarters

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Nov 01, 2019, 07:00 ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 1, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the intelligent edge platform for securing and delivering digital experiences, will officially open its new global headquarters at 145 Broadway in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 2:00 p.m. today. Governor Charlie Baker, Senator Edward Markey and Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito will join Dr. Tom Leighton, co-founder and chief executive officer of Akamai, to celebrate the opening of the building, now home to 1,800 Akamai employees.

The colorful "Akamile" is a mile-long walking path created by Sasaki, the interior architect behind the office design. The connective pathway links all 19 floors of the new Akamai office, creating a band of social and collaborative space that connects teams across the 480,000 SF. The gradient runs between Akamai's brand colors of blue and orange, doubling as a fully integrated branding and wayfinding feature that sets this office apart as a beacon within Kendall Square. Photo ©Anton Grassl

Akamai Technologies began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology over twenty years ago. During the fall of 1998, Akamai was incorporated and moved into incubator space in Cambridge's Kendall Square. Two decades later Akamai has grown into the world's largest and most trusted cloud delivery and security platform upon which many of the world's best known brands and enterprises build their digital experiences.

The new urban headquarters is designed differently from corporate campuses that used to be the norm in the technology industry. Where Akamai previously leased six area buildings, the new headquarters unites local employees together under a single roof. At 19 stories, the new facility is the tallest office building in Kendall Square.

"Massachusetts remains a global hub for groundbreaking technological advancement, and our administration has prioritized efforts to create an environment that supports this thriving innovation economy," said Governor Baker. "As a home-grown Massachusetts company that has expanded significantly over two decades, Akamai remains a crucial part of this important sector of our economy, and we are glad to help celebrate their new global headquarters."

The building was developed and is owned by Boston Properties which has granted Akamai a 15-year lease. The architect for the interior work was Watertown-based Sasaki. The general contractor for the interior buildout was the Boston office of Turner Construction.

"Billions of people around the world depend on Akamai every day for fast, intelligent and secure digital experiences when they visit websites, buy something online, use apps on mobile devices, stream movies and sporting events, or play video games online," said Dr. Leighton. "In fact, it's not a stretch to think of Akamai's new headquarters as the mission control of the internet. From this location, the world's smartest engineers are controlling a quarter-million computers in 4000 locations across 1000 cities and 137 countries, on a platform designed to make sure that the world's internet traffic is reaching end users instantly and reliably and that their data is secure."

To commemorate the opening of the building, the Akamai Foundation, the company's private corporate foundation dedicated to fostering excellence in mathematics, will make a multi-year grant. The nonprofit group Jr. Tech will receive funding for its statewide Girls STEM Summit for girls in grades 8–12 who love science, technology, engineering and math.

Below find details of Akamai's new home.

EXPERIENCE THE EDGE: 145 BROADWAY, KENDALL SQUARE, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

The design intent behind every aspect of the new headquarters is a direct reflection of Akamai's business, core values, and culture. Engagement and input from employees helped shape the vision. From the inception of the project, the "AkaChamps", a cross-functional group of employee influencers, advisors and ambassadors, were an integral part of the multi-year project.

COMMAND AND CONTROL CENTERS

The new command and control centers in the building provide a behind-the-scenes look at what's happening across the internet. Up and running 24/7/365, the command and control centers:

Provide a bird's eye view of the internet, monitoring internet traffic and activity around the world,
Show everything being broadcast by Akamai around the world, from breaking news to major sporting events, and
Highlight where DDoS attacks are detected and mitigated by engineers who escalate alerts and block changing attack vectors in real time.

COMMITMENT TO WELLNESS: THE AKAMILE

145 Broadway was designed to be functional and flexible to support Akamai's framework for current and future wellness initiatives. Program elements marry existing wellness initiatives to a physical structure, improving health and human experience through design. Certification is expected in the summer of 2020 from the International WELL Building Institute™

The AkaMile is a mile-long path that connects the 19 floors of the headquarters. It begins in the lobby and ends at the very top of the building where a state-of-the-art cafeteria space takes up the top two floors of prime real estate – where everyone can enjoy the expansive views of Cambridge and Boston. The space leverages the corridors, hallways, and fire stairs seen in a typical office building, but maximizes them by giving them purpose. It is a pathway to move through the building, just as Akamai helps information move through the web.

SUSTAINABILITY

This highly energy- and water-efficient building is a physical demonstration of Akamai's commitment to mitigate the environmental impact of our global operations. The project incorporated sustainable choices at every step. Contractors diverted construction waste from landfills and were able to achieve a 91% diversion rate through five material streams. The rooftop of the facility is covered with a solar array that provides locally- and sustainably-sourced electricity to the building, offsetting a portion of our impact on the energy grid. The building's heating and air-conditioning system features a 37,000 gallon rainwater harvesting tank to offset the need for city water. Its made-in-Massachusetts active chilled-beams significantly improve energy efficiency -- up to 30% over traditional heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. These are a few of the many conscious decisions that have positioned the building to receive LEED Gold certified version 4 (LEED-CSv4).

About Akamai
Akamai secures and delivers digital experiences for the world's largest companies. Akamai's intelligent edge platform surrounds everything, from the enterprise to the cloud, so customers and their businesses can be fast, smart, and secure. Top brands globally rely on Akamai to help them realize competitive advantage through agile solutions that extend the power of their multi-cloud architectures. Akamai keeps decisions, apps and experiences closer to users than anyone — and attacks and threats far away. Akamai's portfolio of edge security, web and mobile performance, enterprise access and video delivery solutions is supported by unmatched customer service, analytics and 24/7/365 monitoring. To learn why the world's top brands trust Akamai, visit www.akamai.com, blogs.akamai.com, or @Akamai on Twitter.

Media Relations
Gina Sorice
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Investor Relations
Tom Barth
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SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.