Akamai to Re-Locate Corporate Headquarters.

Business/Technology Editors

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2002

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM), today announced an agreement to terminate its lease for office space at Technology Square in Cambridge, Mass. Akamai decided to re-locate its corporate headquarters to take advantage of today's attractive market for commercial real estate, and worked closely with MIT, the landlord for Technology Square, to facilitate the termination. Akamai's corporate headquarters building is currently located at 500 Technology Square.

"We saw an excellent opportunity to re-locate and significantly lower our operating costs," said Paul Sagan, president of Akamai. "We intend to take advantage of today's lower commercial lease rates to reduce operating expenses, possibly by as much as $8-10 million annually starting in 2003, without interrupting our operations or inconveniencing our employees. We expect to announce our new headquarters location in the area within the next 90 days."

"The market for office space in the area has changed dramatically since the company moved to Technology Square in 1999," explained Anne Columbia, of the Columbia Group Realty Advisors, Inc., who is advising Akamai on real estate strategy. "This was a unique opportunity for both parties to benefit from a lease termination. Akamai wins in this situation by reducing costs, and the landlord wins by recapturing 500 and 600 Technology Square, two buildings which are uniquely suited to meet the expanding demand for bio-tech facilities in the area."

Akamai is terminating its leases for two buildings, 500 and 600 Technology Square, representing a total of 234,000 square feet. The company is paying a one-time termination fee to the landlord of $15 million for release from a total lease liability of over $110 million. The Technology Square office complex, located in the Kendall Square area of Cambridge, consists of multiple buildings with a total of more than one million square feet.

Akamai expects to complete a move to new headquarters this fall. Updated financial details associated with the move will be provided on the Company's next quarterly investor conference call in April.

About Akamai

Akamai is a leading provider of secure, outsourced e-business infrastructure services and software. These services and software enable companies to reduce the complexity and cost of deploying and operating a uniform Web infrastructure while ensuring unmatched performance, reliability, scalability and manageability. Akamai's services give businesses a distinct competitive advantage and provide an unparalleled Internet experience for their customers. Akamai's intelligent edge platform for content, streaming media, and application delivery comprises more than 13,500 servers within over 1,000 networks in 66 countries. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Akamai provides services and industry-renowned customer care to hundreds of enterprises worldwide, including dozens of Fortune 500 businesses. For information on Delivering a Better InternetSM, visit www.akamai.com.

Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act 

The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. 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, general economic conditions, the dependence on Akamai's Internet content delivery service and technology products, failure to lease new space within a reasonable period of time, or at all, failure to lease new space under desirable economic terms, increases in costs of construction or moving, due to a labor strike, costs of materials, or other factors, potential difficulties that Akamai may encounter in attempting to expand its business into international markets, a failure of Akamai's network infrastructure, Akamai's ability to protect its intellectual property rights and inventions from third party challenges, and other factors that are discussed in the Akamai's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.