Engineering Efficiency at Global Scale

At Akamai, we do not view sustainability as a constraint on engineering; we view it as a metric of code quality. In a massive distributed system, inefficient code is not just a technical debt — it is a carbon liability and can have an environmental impact.

Our Build Efficiency program operates on a simple principle: performance per watt.

We have empowered our engineering teams to aggressively hunt for resources that are deployed but underutilized. By optimizing our software architecture and increasing hardware density, we are able to deliver our services with less infrastructure.

The Three Pillars of Efficiency

1. Software Optimization: Rewriting code to increase throughput on existing servers.
2. Hardware Density: Transitioning to next-generation servers that deliver exponentially higher compute power per square foot.
3. Process Discipline: Integrating carbon intensity metrics into the software development lifecycle (SDLC), ensuring that green code is the default standard.

This is about more than just sustainability. Improving our operational footprint creates additional value, allowing us to be more flexible with our resources and support broader business priorities.