In a significant display of commitment to the open source community, Akamai is strengthening its footprint across the cloud-native and Linux ecosystems. During a recent interview at KubeCon and CloudNativeCon in London, Chief Architect Alex Chircop shared insights into Akamai’s expanding role in open source development and support.

As the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) celebrates its 10th anniversary, the focus is shifting beyond just innovation to long-term sustainability of projects that power production systems worldwide.

“Kubecons are always exciting. I’ve been to almost every KubeCon since 2016, and it’s just amazing to see not only the continued growth, but also the continued innovation,” said Chircop. “As we get to the 10th year of the CNCF, we’re also looking at how we manage the projects and how we manage the ecosystem in a way that keeps those projects healthy and sustainable.”

This perspective is particularly relevant as the CNCF ecosystem matures, with many critical projects now underpinning enterprise production environments across industries.

Akamai’s Million-Dollar Commitment to CNCF

One of the most significant announcements highlighted was Akamai’s substantial financial contribution to the CNCF: “Most recently, we announced our sponsorship of the CNCF with over a million dollars worth of credits that the CNCF can use to provide resources for the projects that need them,” Chircop explained. “This can be anything from resources for their Git repositories and Git runners all the way to test environments and certification clusters, which power the projects’ life cycle.”

This annual $1 million commitment represents a major investment in the infrastructure that supports cloud-native project development and maintenance.

Chircop was recently elected to the CNCF Technical Oversight Committee (TOC), a position he described as “a huge honor and kind of a very humbling experience.” This role gives him deeper insight into the CNCF’s strategic direction and project health management.

“The TOC does a lot of important work, both in terms of the vision of the CNCF and managing the projects that join the CNCF and, once they’ve joined, managing their health,” he noted.

Product Announcements Built on Open Source Foundations

At KubeCon, Akamai announced several products building on open source technologies:

• Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE): The Linode Kubernetes Engine, Akamai’s managed Kubernetes service
• Reference Architectures: Built on Akamai’s application platform for inferencing workloads and machine learning workflows

These offerings demonstrate how Akamai is leveraging open source technologies to deliver enterprise solutions.

Hosting kernel.org: Supporting Linux at Its Core

Perhaps one of the most impactful contributions announced was Akamai’s hosting of kernel.org: “We’re extremely happy to be able to help the Linux Foundation with kernel.org by providing it a home in the Akamai infrastructure,” Chircop shared. “As of last week, kernel.org has moved onto the Akamai hosting infrastructure.”

This move places critical Linux kernel repositories and infrastructure components on Akamai’s platform, supporting the development ecosystem that powers billions of devices worldwide.

“Linux is such a critical component for everything in our world. Billions of phones, all the data centers, finance organizations, supercomputers, and research systems are based on Linux,” emphasized Chircop. “It’s so important to make sure all of that runs on a solid, robust system. It’s humbling to give back a little and provide that support for the kernel.org environment.”

Akamai’s Open Source Culture

While Akamai may be relatively new to the KubeCon and Kubernetes communities, the company has a long history of open source engagement: “Akamai has a long history in open source and has contributed to networking standards and the Linux kernel for many years,” explained Chircop. “Over the last three years, we’ve been building out our cloud business and services based on Linux and cloud-native foundations.”

The company’s cloud engineering efforts depend heavily on cloud-native projects, making open source contribution an essential part of Akamai’s technical culture: “We have a dependency on so many projects in the cloud-native ecosystem, which means we actively work with all of them. We contribute to those projects—it’s embedded in our culture.”

The Future Impact

As Akamai continues to expand its footprint in the cloud native ecosystem, its contributions—from financial sponsorship to infrastructure support and direct project contributions—represent a significant investment in open source sustainability.

For the technical community, this engagement from a major technology provider signals the continued importance of open governance and collaborative development in building the infrastructure that powers modern computing.

Through strategic contributions like hosting kernel.org and providing resources to CNCF projects, Akamai is supporting fundamental technologies that underpin everything from smartphones to supercomputers, reflecting a deep commitment to the open source foundations of today’s digital world.

Guest: Alex Chircop (LinkedIn)
Company: Akamai
Show: KubeStruck