阿卡邁科技 (AKAM) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Akamai Technologies, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded.

下午好，歡迎參加 Akamai Technologies, Inc. 2023 年第四季財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意此事件正在被記錄。

I would now like to turn the conference over to Tom Barth, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

我現在想將會議交給投資者關係主管湯姆·巴斯 (Tom Barth)。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Akamai's Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. Speaking today will be Tom Leighton, Akamai's Chief Executive Officer; and Ed McGowan, Akamai's Chief Financial Officer. Please note that today's comments include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding revenue and earnings guidance. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and involve a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. The factors include any impact from macroeconomic trends, the integration of any acquisitions and any impact from geopolitical developments.

謝謝你，接線生。大家下午好，感謝您參加 Akamai 的 2023 年第四季財報電話會議。 Akamai 執行長 Tom Leighton 將在今天發表講話；和 Akamai 財務長 Ed McGowan。請注意，今天的評論包含前瞻性陳述，包括有關收入和盈利指導的陳述。這些前瞻性陳述存在風險和不確定性，並涉及許多可能導致實際結果與此類陳述明示或暗示的結果有重大差異的因素。這些因素包括宏觀經濟趨勢的影響、收購的整合以及地緣政治發展的影響。

Additional information concerning these factors is contained in Akamai's filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements included in this call represent the company's view on February 13, 2024. Akamai disclaims any obligation to update these statements to reflect new information, future events or circumstances, except as required by law.

有關這些因素的更多資​​訊包含在 Akamai 向 SEC 提交的文件中，包括我們的 10-K 表年度報告和 10-Q 表季度報告。本次電話會議中包含的前瞻性陳述代表該公司在 2024 年 2 月 13 日的觀點。除法律要求外，Akamai 不承擔更新這些陳述以反映新資訊、未來事件或情況的義務。

As a reminder, we will be referring to some non-GAAP financial metrics during today's call. A detailed reconciliation of GAAP and non-GAAP metrics can be found under the financial portion of the Investor Relations section of akamai.com.

提醒一下，我們將在今天的電話會議中提及一些非公認會計準則財務指標。 GAAP 和非 GAAP 指標的詳細調整可在 akamai.com 投資者關係部分的財務部分找到。

Before I turn the call over to Tom, I'd like to let everyone know that I have transitioned the Head of Akamai Investor Relations role to Mark Stoutenberg. Many of you have met Mark over the past year, and I'm confident you will find him extremely helpful about all things Akamai. I'll be moving into another role internally and want to thank Tom personally for bringing me into the Akamai culture 10 years ago. It's been a privilege to work with so many wonderful people both here at Akamai and, of course, all of you externally. I wish you all happiness and good fortune. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Tom.

在將電話轉給 Tom 之前，我想讓大家知道，我已將 Akamai 投資人關係主管的職位交給 Mark Stoutenberg。你們中的許多人在過去的一年裡見過 Mark，我相信你們會發現他對 Akamai 的所有事情都非常有幫助。我將在內部調任另一個職位，並親自感謝 Tom 10 年前將我帶入 Akamai 文化。能夠與 Akamai 的這麼多優秀人員以及外部的所有人一起工作是我的榮幸。祝大家幸福、好運。現在我想把電話轉給湯姆。

Thanks, Tom, and thank you very much for the terrific job that you've done over the last 10 years at Akamai. It's truly been a pleasure working with you. And I'd like to join you in welcoming Mark as your successor.

謝謝 Tom，非常感謝您過去 10 年在 Akamai 所做的出色工作。與您合作真的很愉快。我想和你們一起歡迎馬克成為你們的繼任者。

Turning now to our Q4 results. I'm pleased to report that Akamai delivered a strong finish to a very successful 2023. Fourth quarter revenue grew to $995 million, and non-GAAP operating margin was 30%. Non-GAAP earnings per share in Q4 was $1.69, up 23% year-over-year and up 22% in constant currency. For the full year, revenue was $3.81 billion, and non-GAAP operating margin was 30%. Full year non-GAAP earnings per share was $6.20, up 15% year-over-year and up 16% in constant currency. Security revenue in Q4 grew 17% year-over-year and was up 18% in constant currency, contributing nearly half of our total revenue in the quarter. Security growth was driven in part by continued strong demand for our market-leading Guardicore segmentation solution as more enterprises relied on Akamai to defend against malware and ransomware. Customers who purchased segmentation in Q4 included one of the largest global tech firms in India and a leading payment systems company based in Hong Kong that handles 15 million transactions a day.

現在轉向我們的第四季業績。我很高興地向大家報告，Akamai 在 2023 年取得了圓滿成功。第四季營收成長至 9.95 億美元，非 GAAP 營業利潤率為 30%。第四季非 GAAP 每股盈餘為 1.69 美元，較去年同期成長 23%，以固定匯率計算成長 22%。全年營收為 38.1 億美元，非 GAAP 營運利潤率為 30%。全年非公認會計準則每股收益為 6.20 美元，年增 15%，以固定匯率計算成長 16%。第四季的安全收入年增 17%，以固定匯率計算成長 18%，佔本季總營收的近一半。安全成長的部分原因是對我們市場領先的 Guardicore 分段解決方案的持續強勁需求，因為越來越多的企業依靠 Akamai 來防禦惡意軟體和勒索軟體。在第四季度購買細分的客戶包括印度最大的全球科技公司之一和總部位於香港的一家領先的支付系統公司，該公司每天處理 1500 萬筆交易。

We've also seen strong interest in our new API security solution that we announced in August. Early adopters of this new solution include 3 major financial institutions, several major retail brands in Europe and North America and a leading industrial automation company in Europe. Our customers are seeing the value of this new capability with several already paying over $0.5 million per year for the service.

我們也看到人們對我們 8 月宣布的新 API 安全解決方案產生了濃厚的興趣。這項新解決方案的早期採用者包括3家主要金融機構、歐洲和北美的幾個主要零售品牌以及歐洲領先的工業自動化公司。我們的客戶已經看到了這項新功能的價值，其中一些客戶已經每年為這項服務支付超過 50 萬美元的費用。

Akamai's API security solution also earned recognition from industry analysts in Q4. KuppingerCole named Akamai an overall industry leader in their API Security and Management Leadership Compass report. And Gartner validated our strong and expanded API capabilities in its Market Guide for Cloud Web Application and API Protection.

Akamai 的 API 安全解決方案在第四季也獲得了產業分析師的認可。 KuppingerCole 在其 API 安全和管理領導指南針報告中將 Akamai 評為整體行業領導者。 Gartner 在其雲端 Web 應用程式和 API 保護市場指南中驗證了我們強大且擴展的 API 功能。

Turning now to cloud computing. I'm pleased to say that we accomplished what we set out to achieve last year in terms of infrastructure deployment, product development, jump-starting our partner ecosystem, onboarding the first mission-critical apps from some major enterprise customers and achieving substantial cost savings as we moved our own applications from hyperscalers to the Akamai Connected Cloud. After launching Akamai Connected Cloud last year, we rolled out 14 new core computing regions around the world, giving us a total of 25 overall. We also enhanced our cloud compute offering by doubling the capacity of our object storage solution and adding premium instances for large commercial workloads that are designed to deliver consistent performance with predictable resource and cost allocation. Also, our Akamai global load balancer is now live. This integrated service is designed to route traffic request to the optimal data center to minimize latency and ensure no single point of failure.

現在轉向雲端運算。我很高興地說，我們在基礎設施部署、產品開發、啟動我們的合作夥伴生態系統、從一些主要企業客戶引入第一批關鍵任務應用程式以及實現大幅成本節省方面完成了去年設定的目標當我們將自己的應用程式從超大規模企業遷移到Akamai Connected Cloud 時。去年推出 Akamai Connected Cloud 後，我們在全球推出了 14 個新的核心運算區域，總數達到 25 個。我們還透過將物件儲存解決方案的容量加倍並為大型商業工作負載添加高級實例來增強我們的雲端運算產品，這些實例旨在透過可預測的資源和成本分配提供一致的效能。此外，我們的 Akamai 全球負載平衡器現已上線。這種整合服務旨在將流量請求路由到最佳資料中心，以最大限度地減少延遲並確保無單點故障。

Last year, we also amplified our go-to-market approach with our cloud computing partner program. The collaborative nature of the program provides a unique model for Akamai to engage with customers at a consultative level to deeply understand their requirements and pain points and to provide a complete solution, leveraging the combined strength of the partner's technology and Akamai's distributed compute platform. We've already partnered with several leading SaaS and PaaS providers in cloud, data and processing platforms. We're very pleased with the progress that we've made thus far and are looking forward to adding more new partnerships in 2024.

去年，我們也透過雲端運算合作夥伴計畫擴大了我們的市場推廣方式。該計劃的協作性質為Akamai 提供了一種獨特的模式，使其能夠以諮詢方式與客戶互動，深入了解他們的需求和痛點，並利用合作夥伴的技術和Akamai 分散式運算平台的綜合優勢提供完整的解決方案。我們已經與雲端、資料和處理平台領域的多家領先 SaaS 和 PaaS 供應商合作。我們對迄今為止所取得的進展感到非常滿意，並期待在 2024 年增加更多新的合作關係。

We've also begun to gain traction with some of our largest customers as they migrate mission-critical apps on to our cloud platform. For example, one of the world's best known social media platforms spent approximately $5 million on computing services with us last year, and they're already on a run rate to do more than double that this year. And 2 of the world's best known software companies recently signed on and are already spending about $0.25 million per month on cloud computing with Akamai.

我們也開始吸引一些最大的客戶，因為他們將關鍵任務應用程式遷移到我們的雲端平台。例如，世界上最知名的社群媒體平台之一去年在我們的運算服務上花費了約 500 萬美元，今年的運行速度已經是這一數字的兩倍多。全球兩家最知名的軟體公司最近與 Akamai 簽約，並已每月在雲端運算方面支出約 25 萬美元。

In Q4, we also signed up a major global media measurement and analytics company, and we displaced a hyperscaler when we signed BluTV, the largest VOD streaming company in Turkey. The streaming customer told us that they found our platform to be simple to use, automated and intuitive, cloud agnostic for a smooth multicloud migration and affordable with very low egress costs, all backed by a trusted and reliable partner.

在第四季度，我們還與一家全球主要媒體測量和分析公司簽約，並在與土耳其最大的 VOD 串流媒體公司 BluTV 簽約時取代了一家超大規模供應商。串流媒體客戶告訴我們，他們發現我們的平台易於使用、自動化且直觀，與雲端無關，可實現平穩的多雲遷移，並且價格實惠，出口成本非常低，所有這些都得到值得信賴和可靠的合作夥伴的支持。

In addition to exceeding our full year cloud computing revenue goal of $500 million last year, we also derive significant cost savings by migrating several of our own applications from hyperscalers to Akamai Connected Cloud. Our Bot Manager and Enterprise Application Access solutions were among the first to migrate. Together, these products are used by over 1,000 customers, and they generate over $300 million in annual revenue for Akamai. But all that is just the beginning.

除了超出去年 5 億美元的全年雲端運算收入目標之外，我們還透過將我們自己的多個應用程式從超大規模企業遷移到 Akamai Connected Cloud 來節省大量成本。我們的機器人管理器和企業應用程式存取解決方案是最先遷移的解決方案之一。這些產品共有 1,000 多家客戶使用，為 Akamai 帶來了超過 3 億美元的年收入。但這一切只是開始。

Today, we're excited to announce the next phase of our multiyear strategy to transform the cloud marketplace, taking cloud computing to the edge by embedding cloud computing capabilities into Akamai's massively distributed edge network. Akamai's new initiative, code-named Gecko, which stands for Generalized Edge Compute, combines the computing power of our cloud platform with the proximity and efficiency of the edge to put workloads closer to users than any other cloud provider. Traditional cloud providers support virtual machines and containers in a relatively small number of core data centers. Gecko is designed to extend this capability to our edge PoPs, bringing full stack computing power to hundreds of previously hard-to-reach locations. Deploying our cloud computing capabilities into Akamai's worldwide edge platform will also enable us to take advantage of existing operational tools, processes and observability, enabling developers to innovate across the entire continuum of compute and providing a consistent experience from centralized cloud to distributed edge. Nobody else in the marketplace does this today.

今天，我們很高興地宣布我們多年戰略的下一階段轉型雲端市場，透過將雲端運算功能嵌入到 Akamai 的大規模分散式邊緣網路中，將雲端運算推向邊緣。 Akamai 的新舉措代號為 Gecko，代表通用邊緣運算，將我們雲端平台的運算能力與邊緣的鄰近性和效率相結合，使工作負載比任何其他雲端供應商更接近用戶。傳統雲端供應商在相對較少的核心資料中心支援虛擬機器和容器。 Gecko 旨在將此功能擴展到我們的邊緣 PoP，為數百個以前難以到達的位置帶來全堆疊運算能力。將我們的雲端運算功能部署到Akamai 的全球邊緣平台中，也將使我們能夠利用現有的操作工具、流程和可觀察性，使開發人員能夠在整個運算連續體中進行創新，並提供從集中式雲到分散式邊緣的一致體驗。如今市場上沒有其他人這樣做。

In the latest implementation phase that we're announcing today, Akamai aims to embed compute with support for virtual machines into about 100 cities by the end of the year. We've deployed new Gecko-architected regions in 4 countries already as well as in cities that lack a concentrated hyperscaler presence. These initial locations are listed in today's press release. Following that, we plan to add support for containers. And then we plan to develop automated workload orchestration to make it easier for developers to build applications across hundreds of distributed locations.

在我們今天宣布的最新實施階段中，Akamai 的目標是到今年年底將支援虛擬機器的計算嵌入到大約 100 個城市。我們已經在 4 個國家以及缺乏集中的超大規模企業的城市部署了新的 Gecko 架構區域。今天的新聞稿中列出了這些初始位置。接下來，我們計劃添加對容器的支援。然後，我們計劃開發自動化工作負載編排，使開發人員更輕鬆地在數百個分散式位置建立應用程式。

We've been conducting early trials of Gecko with several of our enterprise customers that are eager to deliver better experiences for their customers by running workloads closer to users, devices and sources of data. Their early feedback has been very encouraging as they evaluate Gecko for tasks such as AI inferencing, deep learning for recommendation engines, data analytics, multiplayer gaming, accelerating banking transactions, personalization for e-commerce and a variety of media workflow applications such as transcoding. In short, I'm incredibly excited for the prospects of Gecko as we move full stack compute to the edge.

我們一直在與一些企業客戶進行 Gecko 的早期試驗，這些企業客戶渴望透過在更靠近使用者、裝置和資料來源的地方運行工作負載來為客戶提供更好的體驗。他們的早期反饋非常令人鼓舞，因為他們評估了Gecko 的人工智能推理、推薦引擎深度學習、數據分析、多人遊戲、加速銀行交易、電子商務個性化以及轉碼等各種媒體工作流程應用程序等任務。簡而言之，隨著我們將全端運算轉移到邊緣，我對 Gecko 的前景感到非常興奮。

Turning now to content delivery. I'm pleased to report that Akamai remains the market leader by a wide margin, providing the scale and performance required by the world's top brands as we help them deliver reliable, secure and near-flawless online experiences. Our delivery business continues to be an important generator of profit that we use to develop new products to fuel Akamai's future growth. And it's an important driver of our security and cloud computing businesses as we harvest the competitive and cost advantages of offering delivery, security and compute on the same platform as a bundle.

現在轉向內容交付。我很高興地向您報告，Akamai 仍然遙遙領先，提供世界頂級品牌所需的規模和性能，幫助他們提供可靠、安全和近乎完美的線上體驗。我們的交付業務仍然是重要的利潤來源，我們用它來開發新產品，推動 Akamai 的未來成長。它是我們安全和雲端運算業務的重要驅動力，因為我們透過在同一平台上捆綁提供交付、安全和運算來獲得競爭和成本優勢。

As we've noted in past calls, we're selective when it comes to less profitable delivery opportunities. And this is a discipline that we intend to maintain and, in some cases, increase in 2024. To be clear, we still aim to be the best in delivery for our customers, and we believe that our disciplined approach will benefit our business by allowing us to focus more of our investment in security and cloud computing, which are now approaching 2/3 of Akamai's revenue and growing at a rapid rate.

正如我們在過去的電話中指出的那樣，我們在談到利潤較低的交付機會時會進行選擇性。我們打算在2024 年維持這項紀律，並在某些情況下加強這項紀律。需要明確的是，我們的目標仍然是為客戶提供最好的交付服務，我們相信，我們嚴格的方法將使我們的業務受益我們將更多投資集中在安全和雲端運算上，目前這兩項業務已接近 Akamai 收入的 2/3，並且正在快速成長。

In summary, we're pleased to have accomplished what we said we would do in 2023. Our cloud computing plans are taking shape as we envisioned. Our expanded security portfolio is enabling us to deepen our relationships with customers, and we continue to invest in Akamai's future growth while also enhancing our profitability.

總之，我們很高興完成了我們在 2023 年承諾的目標。我們的雲端運算計畫正在按照我們的設想成形。我們擴展的安全產品組合使我們能夠加深與客戶的關係，我們將繼續投資於 Akamai 的未來成長，同時提高我們的獲利能力。

Now I'll turn the call over to Ed for more on our results and our outlook for Q1 and 2024. Ed?

現在我將把電話轉給 Ed，以了解有關我們的業績以及第一季和 2024 年前景的更多資訊。Ed？

Thank you, Tom. I would also like to thank Tom Barth for his incredible service for 10 years as our Head of Investor Relations. Now moving on to our results. Let me start by saying that I'm very pleased with our fiscal 2023 year results, delivering $6.20 of non-GAAP earnings per share, capping off a year of double-digit earnings growth for our shareholders. Today, I'll cover our Q4 results, provide some color regarding 2024, including some items to help investors better understand a few factors that will impact our upcoming results, and then close with our Q1 and full year 2024 guidance.

謝謝你，湯姆。我還要感謝湯姆·巴特 (Tom Barth) 在擔任我們的投資者關係主管 10 年來所提供的出色服務。現在繼續我們的結果。首先我要說的是，我對我們 2023 財年的業績非常滿意，實現了 6.20 美元的非 GAAP 每股收益，為股東帶來了兩位數的收益成長。今天，我將介紹我們的第四季度業績，提供一些有關2024 年的信息，包括一些幫助投資者更好地了解將影響我們即將公佈的業績的一些因素的項目，然後以我們第一季度和2024年全年的指導作為結束。

Starting with revenue. Q4 revenue was $995 million, up 7% year-over-year as reported and in constant currency. We saw continued strong growth in our compute and security businesses during the fourth quarter. Our compute business grew to $135 million, up 20% year-over-year as reported and in constant currency. We continue to be very pleased with the feedback regarding our cloud compute offerings, and we are very optimistic about the early traction we are seeing from enterprise customers.

從收入開始。以固定匯率計算，第四季營收為 9.95 億美元，年增 7%。第四季我們的計算和安全業務持續強勁成長。我們的計算業務成長至 1.35 億美元，以固定匯率計算，年增 20%。我們對有關我們的雲端運算產品的回饋仍然非常滿意，並且我們對企業客戶的早期吸引力非常樂觀。

Moving to security. Revenue was $471 million, growing 18% year-over-year and up 17% in constant currency. Our security revenue continues to be driven by strong growth in our Guardicore segmentation solution and our industry-leading web app firewall, denial of service and bot management solutions. In addition, and as Tom mentioned, we are encouraged by the early traction of our new API security solution. During the fourth quarter, we signed 17 API security customers, including 4 with annual contract values in excess of $500,000 per year.

轉向安全。營收為 4.71 億美元，年增 18%，以固定匯率計算成長 17%。我們的安全收入持續受到 Guardicore 分段解決方案和業界領先的 Web 應用防火牆、拒絕服務和機器人管理解決方案的強勁成長所推動。此外，正如 Tom 所提到的，我們對新的 API 安全解決方案的早期吸引力感到鼓舞。第四季度，我們簽署了 17 個 API 安全客戶，其中 4 個客戶的年合約價值超過 50 萬美元。

Our delivery revenue was $389 million, including approximately $20 million from the contracts we recently acquired from StackPath and Lumen. International revenue was $479 million, up 8% year-over-year or up 6% in constant currency, representing 48% of total revenue in Q4. Finally, foreign exchange fluctuations had a negative impact on revenue of $4 million on a sequential basis and a positive $6 million benefit on a year-over-year basis.

我們的交付收入為 3.89 億美元，其中包括我們最近從 StackPath 和 Lumen 獲得的合約中的約 2000 萬美元。國際營收為 4.79 億美元，年增 8%，以固定匯率計算成長 6%，佔第四季總營收的 48%。最後，外匯波動對收入產生了 400 萬美元的環比負面影響，並與去年同期相比產生了 600 萬美元的正面收益。

Moving to profitability. In Q4, we generated strong non-GAAP net income of $263 million or $1.69 of earnings per diluted share, up 23% year-over-year or 22% in constant currency and $0.07 above the high end of our guidance range. These stronger-than-expected EPS results were driven primarily by continued progress on the cost-saving initiatives we have previously outlined and approximately $6 million in lower-than-expected transition services or TSA costs associated with the StackPath and Lumen contracts as our services organization migrated the customers onto our platform much faster than we expected.

轉向盈利。第四季度，我們實現了強勁的非 GAAP 淨利潤 2.63 億美元，即稀釋後每股收益 1.69 美元，同比增長 23%，按固定匯率計算增長 22%，比我們指導範圍的上限高出 0.07 美元。這些強於預期的每股盈餘結果主要是由於我們先前概述的成本節約計劃的持續進展以及與作為我們的服務組織的StackPath 和Lumen 合約相關的約600 萬美元的低於預期的過渡服務或TSA 成本推動的將客戶遷移到我們的平台的速度比我們預期的要快得多。

Q4 CapEx was $143 million or just below 15% of revenue. We were very pleased with our continued focus on lowering the capital intensity of our delivery business. This effort, along with our very strong profitability, enabled us to deliver very strong free cash flow results in Q4.

第四季資本支出為 1.43 億美元，略低於營收的 15%。我們對持續致力於降低配送業務的資本密集度感到非常高興。這項努力加上我們非常強勁的獲利能力，使我們能夠在第四季度實現非常強勁的自由現金流結果。

Moving to our capital allocation strategy. During the fourth quarter, we spent approximately $55 million to buy back approximately 500,000 shares. For the full year, we spent approximately $654 million to buy back approximately 8 million shares. We ended 2023 with approximately $500 million remaining on our current repurchase authorization. Going forward, our intention is to continue buying back shares to offset dilution from employee equity programs over time and to be opportunistic in both M&A and share repurchases.

轉向我們的資本配置策略。第四季度，我們花了約 5,500 萬美元回購了約 50 萬股股票。全年我們花費約 6.54 億美元回購約 800 萬股股票。截至 2023 年年底，我們目前的回購授權尚剩餘約 5 億美元。展望未來，我們的目的是繼續回購股票，以抵消員工股權計劃隨著時間的推移而造成的稀釋，並在併購和股票回購方面抓住機會。

Before I move on to guidance, there are several items that I want to highlight in order to give investors some greater insight into the business. The first relates to our delivery revenue. In the first half of 2024, 7 of our top 10 CDN customers' contracts come up for renewal. As we've discussed in the past, this type of renewal generally leads to an initial drop in revenue. And then we typically see revenue grow again as traffic increases over time. We have factored the expected outcome of these renewals into our Q1 and full year 2024 guidance.

在繼續提供指導之前，我想強調幾點，以便讓投資人對業務有更深入的了解。第一個與我們的配送收入有關。 2024 年上半年，我們的十大 CDN 客戶中有 7 個需要續約。正如我們過去所討論的，這種類型的續約通常會導致收入最初下降。然後，隨著流量的增加，我們通常會看到收入再次成長。我們已將這些更新的預期結果納入我們的第一季和 2024 年全年指引中。

In addition, as Tom mentioned, we plan to continue to optimize our delivery business by focusing on how we charge certain high-volume traffic customers for their usage on our network, all with an eye on profitability. For example, we plan to start charging a premium for higher cost delivery destinations. We expect to continue to optimize the ratio of peak to day-to-day traffic, and we plan to negotiate different pricing for API traffic versus download traffic. Choosing to shed some less profitable traffic will result in a more balanced and profitable approach to pricing, which we believe is the right strategy for the company.

此外，正如湯姆所提到的，我們計劃繼續優化我們的配送業務，重點關注如何向某些大流量客戶收取使用我們網路的費用，所有這些都著眼於盈利能力。例如，我們計劃開始對成本較高的送貨目的地收取溢價。我們預計將繼續優化峰值流量與日常流量的比率，並規劃針對 API 流量與下載流量協商不同的定價。選擇放棄一些利潤較低的流量將導致更平衡和有利可圖的定價方式，我們認為這對公司來說是正確的策略。

Second, OECD member countries continue to work toward the enactment of a 15% global minimum corporate tax rate. And in particular, in December 2023, the Swiss Federal Council declared the rules in effect for Switzerland beginning in 2024. As a result, we anticipate that our non-GAAP effective tax rate will increase by roughly 1.5 to 2 percentage points to approximately 18.5% to 19%. We estimate this increase in our tax rate will have a negative impact on Q1 non-GAAP EPS of approximately $0.02 to $0.03 per diluted share and a negative impact on full year non-GAAP EPS of approximately $0.12 to $0.15 per diluted share. The impact of this tax rate change has been factored into our Q1 and full year 2024 guidance.

其次，經合組織成員國繼續努力製定15%的全球最低企業稅率。特別是，2023 年 12 月，瑞士聯邦委員會宣布自 2024 年起對瑞士生效的規則。因此，我們預計我們的非 GAAP 有效稅率將增加約 1.5 至 2 個百分點，達到約 18.5%至 19%。我們估計，稅率的提高將對第一季非GAAP 每股攤薄每股收益產生約0.02 至0.03 美元的負面影響，並對全年非GAAP 每股攤薄每股收益產生約0.12 至0.15 美元的負面影響。這項稅率變化的影響已納入我們第一季和 2024 年全年的指導中。

Third, we expect to generate significantly more free cash flow in 2024 compared to 2023 levels. This is primarily due to much lower capital expenditures in 2024, along with our continued focus on profitability. Please note that the full cost to build out our Gecko compute sites we announced earlier today is included in our Q1 and full year 2024 capital expenditure guidance.

第三，我們預計 2024 年將產生比 2023 年水準顯著更多的自由現金流。這主要是由於 2024 年的資本支出大幅下降，以及我們繼續專注於獲利能力。請注意，我們今天早些時候宣布的建造 Gecko 計算站點的全部成本已包含在我們的第一季和 2024 年全年資本支出指南中。

Fourth, I want to remind you of the typical seasonality we experienced on the top and bottom lines throughout the year. Regarding revenue, the fourth quarter is usually our strongest quarter. Regarding profitability, in Q1, we incurred much higher payroll taxes related to the reset of social security taxes for employees who maxed out during 2023 and from stock vesting from employee equity programs, which tend to be more heavily concentrated in the first quarter. It's also worth noting that in Q3, our annual company-wide merit-based salary increases go into effect, so we tend to see higher operating costs in Q3 compared to Q2 levels.

第四，我想提醒您我們全年的收入和利潤所經歷的典型季節性。就營收而言，第四季通常是我們最強勁的季度。就獲利能力而言，第一季度，我們因2023 年達到最高限額的員工的社會安全稅重置以及員工股權計劃的股票歸屬而產生了更高的工資稅，而這些計劃往往更集中在第一季度。另外值得注意的是，在第三季度，我們全公司範圍內的年度績效加薪開始生效，因此與第二季度相比，我們往往會看到第三季的營運成本更高。

Finally, for 2024, we anticipate heightened volatility in foreign currency markets driven by the unpredictable timing and magnitude of Federal Reserve policy changes and their impact on interest rates. With this in mind, forecasting the trajectory of FX in the latter part of the year poses a formidable challenge. Thus, for the full year, we plan to provide annual revenue growth, security and compute revenue growth, non-GAAP EPS growth, non-GAAP operating margin and CapEx only in constant currency, based on 12/31/2023 exchange rates. However, for the coming quarter, we will provide both as reported and constant currency guidance.

最後，我們預期 2024 年外匯市場的波動性將加劇，原因是聯準會政策變化的時間和幅度及其對利率的影響不可預測。考慮到這一點，預測今年下半年的外匯走勢是一項艱鉅的挑戰。因此，對於全年，我們計劃僅以固定貨幣（基於 2023 年 12 月 31 日的匯率）提供年度收入成長、安全和計算收入成長、非 GAAP 每股盈餘成長、非 GAAP 營業利潤率和資本支出。然而，對於下個季度，我們將提供報告和不變的貨幣指導。

As a reminder, we have approximately $1.2 billion of annual revenue that is generated from foreign currency with the euro, yen, Great British pound being the largest non-U.S. dollar sources of revenue. In addition, our costs in non-U.S. dollars tend to be significantly lower than our revenue and are primarily in Indian rupee, Israeli shekel and Polish zloty.

提醒一下，我們大約有 12 億美元的年收入來自外幣，其中歐元、日圓、英鎊是最大的非美元收入來源。此外，我們的非美元成本往往顯著低於我們的收入，主要是印度盧比、以色列謝克爾和波蘭茲羅提。

Moving now to guidance. Our guidance for 2024 assumes no material changes, good or bad, in the current macroeconomic landscape. For the first quarter of 2024, we are projecting revenue in the range of $980 million to $1 billion or up 7% to 9% as reported or 8% to 10% in constant currency over Q1 2023.

現在轉向指導。我們對 2024 年的指導假設當前宏觀經濟格局不會發生任何重大變化，無論好壞。我們預計 2024 年第一季的營收將在 9.8 億美元至 10 億美元之間，或比 2023 年第一季報告成長 7% 至 9%，以固定匯率計算成長 8% 至 10%。

At current spot rates, foreign exchange fluctuations are expected to have a positive $2 million impact on Q1 revenue compared to Q4 levels and a negative $4 million impact year-over-year. At these revenue levels, we expect cash gross margin of approximately 73% as reported and in constant currency. Q1 non-GAAP operating expenses are projected to be $305 million to $310 million. We anticipate Q1 EBITDA margins of approximately 42% to 43% as reported and in constant currency. We expect non-GAAP depreciation expense of $127 million to $129 million. We expect non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 29% to 30% as reported and in constant currency for Q1. And with the overall revenue and spend configuration I just outlined, we expect Q1 non-GAAP EPS in the range of $1.59 to $1.64 or up 14% to 18% as reported and 16% to 19% in constant currency. This EPS guidance assumes taxes of $56 million to $58 million based on an estimated quarterly non-GAAP tax rate of approximately 18.5% to 19%. It also reflects a fully diluted share count of approximately 155 million shares.

按照目前的即期匯率，與第四季的水準相比，外匯波動預計將對第一季的收入產生 200 萬美元的正面影響，年比產生 400 萬美元的負面影響。在這些收入水準上，我們預計以固定匯率計算的報告現金毛利率約為 73%。第一季非 GAAP 營運支出預計為 3.05 億至 3.1 億美元。我們預計第一季 EBITDA 利潤率以固定匯率計算約為 42% 至 43%。我們預計非 GAAP 折舊費用為 1.27 億美元至 1.29 億美元。我們預計第一季以固定匯率計算的非 GAAP 營業利潤率約為 29% 至 30%。根據我剛剛概述的總體收入和支出配置，我們預計第一季非GAAP 每股收益將在1.59 美元至1.64 美元之間，或按報告增長14% 至18%，按固定匯率計算增長16% 至19% 。本每股收益指引假設稅費為 5,600 萬美元至 5,800 萬美元，基於估計的季度非 GAAP 稅率約為 18.5% 至 19%。它還反映了約 1.55 億股的完全稀釋後股票數量。

Moving on to CapEx. We expect to spend approximately $146 million to $154 million, excluding equity compensation and capitalized interest in the first quarter. This represents approximately 15% of total revenue.

轉向資本支出。我們預計第一季的支出約為 1.46 億至 1.54 億美元，不包括股權補償和資本化利息。這約佔總收入的 15%。

Looking ahead to the full year for 2024, we expect revenue growth of 6% to 8% in constant currency. We expect security revenue growth of approximately 14% to 16% in constant currency. We expect compute revenue growth to be approximately 20% in constant currency. And we are estimating non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 30% in constant currency. And full year CapEx is expected to be approximately 15% of total constant currency revenue, which again includes the Gecko compute build-outs.

展望 2024 年全年，我們預期以固定匯率計算營收成長 6% 至 8%。我們預計安全收入以固定匯率計算將成長約 14% 至 16%。以固定匯率計算，我們預計計算收入成長約為 20%。我們預計，以固定匯率計算，非 GAAP 營業利潤率約為 30%。全年資本支出預計將佔恆定貨幣總收入的 15% 左右，其中也包括 Gecko 計算擴建。

We expect our CapEx to be roughly broken down as follows: approximately 3% of revenue for our delivery and security business, approximately 4% of revenue for compute, approximately 7% of revenue for capitalized software and the remainder for IT and facility-related spend. We expect non-GAAP earnings per diluted share growth of 7% to 11% in constant currency. And as we mentioned earlier, this non-GAAP earnings guidance is based on a non-GAAP effective tax rate of approximately 18.5% to 19% and a fully diluted share count of approximately 155 million shares.

我們預計我們的資本支出將大致細分如下：約3% 的收入用於交付和安全業務，約4% 的收入用於計算，約7% 的收入用於資本化軟體，其餘用於IT 和設施相關支出。我們預計，以固定匯率計算，非公認會計準則每股攤薄收益將成長 7% 至 11%。正如我們之前提到的，這項非 GAAP 獲利指引是基於約 18.5% 至 19% 的非 GAAP 有效稅率以及約 1.55 億股的完全稀釋股數。

In closing, we are very pleased with the strong finish to 2023. We continue to be excited about our growth prospects and driving profitability across the business. Now Tom and I would like to take your questions. Operator?

最後，我們對 2023 年的強勁收官感到非常滿意。我們繼續對我們的成長前景和推動整個業務的獲利能力感到興奮。現在湯姆和我想回答你們的問題。操作員？

(Operator Instructions) Our first question will come from Fatima Boolani of Citi.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題將來自花旗銀行的 Fatima Boolani。

Ed, I wanted to drill into the delivery, the segment performance and the guidance and some of the modeling points that you shared with us. I was hoping you could parse out for us, some of the organic traffic trends you saw in the platform parsed away from the traffic from the acquired contracts between StackPath and Lumen. And then to the extent you can talk about in time frame you have with regards to absorbing some of this additional acquired traffic from these contracts.

Ed，我想深入探討交付、細分績效和指導以及您與我們分享的一些建模要點。我希望您能為我們解析出您在平台中看到的一些自然流量趨勢，這些趨勢是從 StackPath 和 Lumen 之間收購的合約的流量中解析出來的。然後，您可以在一定程度上討論從這些合約中吸收一些額外獲得的流量的時間範圍。

And the last piece of the question here is also the guidance that we calculated to be 6% -- down 6% for delivery in 2024 implied by your guidance, full year guidance. Can you talk to what proportion of that traffic that you would have deemed lower quality being peeled off is maybe the reason why we're not seeing a more sharper improvement in the delivery franchise? And then I have a quick follow-up.

這裡的最後一個問題也是我們計算的 6% 的指導——按照你們的指導，全年指導，2024 年的交付量下降了 6%。您能否談談您認為被剝離的低品質流量的比例是多少，這可能是我們沒有看到交付特許經營權出現更明顯改善的原因？然後我會進行快速跟進。

All right. Sure. Let me see if I can tackle all those for you. I'll start with the performance in Q4. So I'll break it down into a couple of buckets. So in Q4, we tend to see a stronger seasonal quarter for us. And we did see some of that. So from the retail customer perspective, we saw bursting roughly to the tune of about half of what we saw last year. And I think that has to do mostly with the 0 overage. As that's become more popular, we are seeing less bursting. If I look back a few years, that's down about 50% '22 compared to '21 and again, '23 compared to '22. Some of it could be macro factors, hard to tell. We're not really the best gauge for folks' consumption but more of their surfing.

好的。當然。讓我看看是否可以為您解決所有這些問題。我將從第四季的表現開始。所以我會把它分成幾個部分。因此，在第四季度，我們往往會看到一個更強勁的季節性季度。我們確實看到了其中的一些。因此，從零售客戶的角度來看，我們看到的成長大約是去年的一半。我認為這主要與 0 超額有關。隨著它變得越來越流行，我們看到的爆裂現象越來越少。如果我回顧幾年，與 21 年相比，22 年下降了約 50%，與 22 年相比，23 年下降了約 50%。其中一些可能是宏觀因素，很難說。我們並不是衡量人們消費的最佳衡量標準，而是衡量他們衝浪的最佳衡量標準。

If I look at gaming, gaming was a better year. If I look last year, gaming was pretty weak. This year, it was pretty good. Gaming tends to be fairly lower-priced delivery, so you don't get as much upside in revenue. Video was up quarter-over-quarter but not as much as we saw in the prior year, so I would say kind of an okay fourth quarter from delivery. The one area that was probably the weakest was more in sort of high tech. So think about that as new connected devices, maybe it's connected TV or a new -- say, an iPad or something like that, printer drivers, that sort of stuff. That was much weaker than what we saw last year. Last year was a pretty good bump up in that category. So that really sort of sums up what the dynamics are in terms of the delivery business in Q4. And I looked at that not including the acquisition traffic.

如果我看一下遊戲，我會發現遊戲是更好的一年。如果我看看去年，遊戲市場相當疲軟。今年，已經很不錯了。遊戲的交付價格往往相當低，因此您無法獲得太多的收入成長。影片數量較上季成長，但沒有去年那麼多，所以我想說第四季的交付情況還不錯。最薄弱的一個領域可能是高科技領域。因此，可以將其視為新的連網設備，也許是連網電視或新設備，例如 iPad 或類似設備、印表機驅動程式等。這比我們去年看到的要弱得多。去年在該類別中取得了相當不錯的進步。這確實總結了第四季度交付業務的動態。我查看的數據不包括收購流量。

The second question you asked, if I wrote it down correctly, was the absorption of the traffic from the acquisitions. We've largely done that. The services team did a phenomenal job migrating over the customers. We did it in probably about 1/3 of the time that we had expected to be able to do that. There's still a few stragglers, but the transition services costs are immaterial. So that's why we didn't call that out. But that's largely been done.

你問的第二個問題，如果沒記錯的話，就是收購帶來的流量吸收。我們基本上已經做到了這一點。服務團隊在客戶遷移方面做得非常出色。我們完成這件事的時間大約是我們預期時間的 1/3。雖然仍有一些落後者，但過渡服務成本並不重要。所以這就是為什麼我們沒有指出這一點。但這基本上已經完成了。

In terms of this year, why are we seeing a down 6%, if that's the math you're using, for delivery. A lot of it has to do with the renewals. Unfortunately, these larger customers, as we've talked in the past, we only have about 8 customers that are greater than 1% of revenue. And unfortunately, 7 of them are renewing in the first half of the year. That does have a bit of an impact on the delivery business. the majority of the revenue from those customers comes from delivery. We've seen this in the past. It seems like every 2 years, we kind of bump into this. Even though we try to sign staggered contracts, what happens often is someone might sign a 2- or a 3-year deal with a revenue commit, they'll spend that in a shorter period of time, and we just get a combination of renewals here.

就今年而言，如果這是您使用的數學計算的話，為什麼我們會看到交付量下降了 6%。這很大程度上與續訂有關。不幸的是，這些較大的客戶，正如我們過去談到的，我們只有大約 8 個客戶佔收入的比例超過 1%。不幸的是，其中有 7 個是在今年上半年續訂的。這確實對快遞業務產生了一些影響。這些客戶的大部分收入來自送貨。我們過去已經見過這種情況。似乎每隔兩年，我們就會遇到這種情況。儘管我們嘗試簽署交錯合同，但經常發生的情況是，有人可能會簽署一份為期2 年或3 年的協議，並承諾收入，他們會在更短的時間內花掉這筆費用，而我們只是獲得續約的組合這裡。

And then the other thing was on the shedding of traffic. So let me just get a little bit more specific with what we're doing. So last year, if you remember, we talked about being a bit more stringent with the peak to average ratios. We're going to continue to do that. We did a pretty good job. There's still a few customers we need to adjust. And that generally happens where customers will split -- and they have lots of day-to-day traffic and they might split that among 3 or 4 CDNs. And then they'll have peak events, whether that's a big video event or a big download event, and we get the disproportionate size of that peak. So you want to make sure you're compensated for that. So the way to do that is you get a higher percentage of the day-to-day or you just limit the peak. So we'll continue doing that. And sometimes, that may mean we lose a little bit of traffic, but that's okay because you can see the results in CapEx.

另一件事是交通流量的減少。讓我更具體地介紹一下我們正在做的事情。所以去年，如果你還記得的話，我們討論過對峰值與平均值的比率更加嚴格。我們將繼續這樣做。我們做得很好。還有一些客戶需要我們調整。這種情況通常發生在客戶進行分割的地方 - 他們有大量的日常流量，他們可能會將其分配給 3 或 4 個 CDN。然後他們會發生峰值事件，無論是大型視頻事件還是大型下載事件，我們都會得到該峰值的不成比例的大小。所以你想確保你得到補償。因此，做到這一點的方法是你獲得更高的日常百分比，或者你只是限制峰值。所以我們將繼續這樣做。有時，這可能意味著我們會損失一點流量，但這沒關係，因為您可以在資本支出中看到結果。

The new thing that we're doing now is we've worked with product and IT to enable us to be able to build for very granular level on destinations. In the past, we generally would build based on large geos, say, for example, the U.S. or Europe or Asia. Now we're able to get one level deeper. And so we can go after some of the areas where our costs are a bit higher to deliver. It's unclear. We're assuming that customers have choice. They may decide to take that traffic somewhere else. Some of our competitors don't really focus as much on profit as we do. If that's the case, then that's okay with us. So I think as you -- as we try to factor all that in, those are the 2 driving factors as to why we're not seeing a better delivery performance in '24. I think I hit all your questions.

我們現在正在做的新事情是我們與產品和 IT 部門合作，使我們能夠在目的地上進行非常精細的建置。過去，我們通常會基於大型地理區域進行構建，例如美國、歐洲或亞洲。現在我們可以更深入一層了。因此，我們可以針對一些交付成本較高的領域。目前還不清楚。我們假設客戶有選擇。他們可能決定將流量轉移到其他地方。我們的一些競爭對手並不像我們那樣真正專注於利潤。如果是這樣的話，那我們也沒有問題。所以我認為，當我們試圖將所有這些因素納入考量時，這些是我們在 24 年沒有看到更好的交付績效的兩個驅動因素。我想我回答了你所有的問題。

You did, super comprehensive. And then easy one, just on the gross margins, you gave us the guidance for cash gross margin in the first quarter. But just qualitatively, if you can talk to us about some of the puts and takes at a full year level as we think about the mix of business changing, your focus on pricing discipline and just even U.S. international mix. Any sort of puts and takes in terms of the dynamics we should be thinking about COGS and cash gross margins for the full year? And that's it for me.

你做到了，超級全面。然後是簡單的一個，就毛利率而言，您為我們提供了第一季現金毛利率的指導。但就定性而言，如果您能與我們討論全年水準的一些看跌期權和看跌期權，因為我們考慮了業務變化的組合、您對定價規則的關注，甚至是美國的國際組合。我們應該考慮全年的銷貨成本和現金毛利率的動態方面的任何看跌期權和賣出期權？對我來說就是這樣。

Sure. No problem. In terms of the cost of goods sold, I'll start with the good stuff that's going on in cost of goods sold. Obviously, you touched on the mix. So as we get a higher degree of security business, that obviously helps our gross margin line.

當然。沒問題。就銷售商品成本而言，我將從銷售商品成本中發生的好事開始。顯然，你談到了混合。因此，當我們獲得更高程度的安全業務時，這顯然有助於我們的毛利率線。

And the second thing is the movement of our third-party cloud costs onto our own platform. We did a great job so far this year. Tom talked a bit about that in his prepared remarks. And we have more to go, and we have a road map to get that. So that will drive some significant savings. The downside or what's sort of contracting them or not expanding the margins as much, I should say, we could be going a bit higher, is that with the build-out of the Gecko sites, we'll incur some additional co-location costs. So as we start to build out those facilities, you don't have revenue to go against it. But also, as I talked about last year, when we built out some of the bigger sites, with the accounting rules, when you do long-term co-lo commitments or any kind of commitment for long-term leases, you have to straight line any commitments. So we end up with a bit of a disconnect between what we're paying in cash and what we're actually expensing. So we're able to offset that with the savings we get from the third-party cloud and the mix, but those are the underlying dynamics.

第二件事是將我們的第三方雲端成本轉移到我們自己的平台。今年到目前為止，我們做得很好。湯姆在他準備好的演講中談到了這一點。我們還有更多工作要做，我們已經制定了實現這一目標的路線圖。因此，這將帶來一些顯著的節省。不利的一面是，我們會收縮它們或不擴大利潤，我應該說，我們可以走得更高一點，那就是隨著 Gecko 站點的擴建，我們將產生一些額外的託管成本。因此，當我們開始建造這些設施時，您就沒有收入來對抗它。而且，正如我去年談到的，當我們根據會計規則建造一些更大的網站時，當你做出長期託管承諾或任何類型的長期租賃承諾時，你必須直接列出任何承諾。因此，我們最終會發現我們所支付的現金與我們實際支出的費用之間存在一些脫節。因此，我們能夠透過從第三方雲端和混合中獲得的節省來抵消這一點，但這些是潛在的動力。

The next question comes from Frank Louthan of Raymond James.

下一個問題來自 Raymond James 的 Frank Louthan。

How different is Gecko from what you're doing now with compute? Is this a new packaging of some of your products? Or is it something a little different? And then secondly, of the CDN business that you acquired last year, how much are you expecting that to fall off? I think the goal was to try to get it from other services. But what are you factoring in there?

Gecko 與您現在所做的計算有何不同？這是你們某些產品的新包裝嗎？還是有點不同？其次，您去年收購的 CDN 業務，您預期會下降多少？我認為目標是嘗試從其他服務中獲取它。但你在那裡考慮了什麼？

Yes. I'll take the first question. Yes, Gecko is not packaging. Gecko is a new capability where we're going to be offering full stack compute in 100 cities by the end of the year and ultimately, in hundreds of cities. We're actually taking full stack compute, the kinds of services you get in Linode or a hyperscaler, and making that available in our edge PoPs. Now today, the edge PoPs, we have 4,000 and they run function as a service. We'll spin up JavaScript apps and 4,000 locations in over 700 cities in milliseconds based on user demand. But that's not full stack compute.

是的。我來回答第一個問題。是的，Gecko 不是包裝。 Gecko 是一項新功能，我們將在今年年底前在 100 個城市提供全端運算，最終在數百個城市提供全端運算。我們實際上正在採用全端運算，即您在 Linode 或超大規模器中獲得的服務類型，並將其在我們的邊緣 PoP 中提供。現在，我們有 4,000 個邊緣 PoP，它們將功能作為服務運行。我們將根據使用者需求在幾毫秒內啟動 JavaScript 應用程式和 700 多個城市的 4,000 個地點。但這不是全端計算。

Now we're going to be taking virtual machines and containers and supporting those in our edge platform. And that enables our customers to get much better performance and scalability, also lower cost because of the financial benefits we get from our edge platform. So it really becomes, I think, a very compelling cloud computing offering that just doesn't exist in the marketplace today. It's not a packaging thing at all. This is a new capability. And of course, ultimately, after we get the support for VMs and containers, we want to make it work just as we do function as a service, so that we'll be spinning up containers and VMs on demand where and when they're needed. And that capability doesn't exist today in the market. Ed, do you want to take the CDN question, the acquisition?

現在我們將採用虛擬機器和容器並在我們的邊緣平台中支援它們。這使我們的客戶能夠獲得更好的性能和可擴展性，並且由於我們從邊緣平台獲得的經濟效益而降低了成本。因此，我認為，它確實成為了當今市場上不存在的非常引人注目的雲端運算產品。這根本不是包裝的事情。這是一項新功能。當然，最終，在我們獲得對虛擬機和容器的支援後，我們希望讓它像我們作為服務一樣工作，這樣我們就可以隨時隨地按需啟動容器和虛擬機。需要。而目前市場上還不具備這種能力。 Ed，您想回答 CDN 問題嗎？收購？

Sure. Happy to do that. Yes. I would say, just as a reminder, when we acquired the businesses, we actually acquired selected customers. What we mean by that is we actually went through and we left some customers that we weren't going to take, for example, if someone violated our acceptable use policy, really small customers and then believe it or not, some that had pricing that we just didn't want to take. So we had already gone through sort of a selection process. If you recall, I had given guidance last quarter of about $18 million to $20 million for this quarter, and we hit the high end of that range, which I'm happy that we did. So we've largely been able to migrate over everything that we had hoped to. There were a few customers that churned. But by and large, we've gotten everything out of that acquisition or those acquisitions, I should say, there were 2 of them, that we had hoped to.

當然。很高興這樣做。是的。我想說，只是提醒一下，當我們收購這些業務時，我們實際上收購了選定的客戶。我們的意思是，我們實際上經歷過，我們留下了一些我們不會接受的客戶，例如，如果有人違反了我們可接受的使用政策，非常小的客戶，然後信不信由你，有些客戶的定價是我們只是不想接受。所以我們已經經歷了某種選擇過程。如果您還記得的話，我在上個季度給出的本季指引約為 1800 萬至 2000 萬美元，我們達到了該範圍的高端，我很高興我們做到了。因此，我們基本上能夠遷移我們希望的所有內容。有一些顧客流失了。但總的來說，我們已經從那次收購中得到了一切，我應該說，其中有兩次是我們所希望的。

The next question comes from James Fish of Piper Sandler.

下一個問題來自 Piper Sandler 的 James Fish。

First, just Tom Barth, look, you've been a class act and appreciate all the help over the years and just wanted to echo Tom Leighton and Ed's sentiment there. Really appreciate the help over the years. I wanted to circle over to security actually. Look, security was a little bit lower than I think we were all anticipating for Q4. I get that we have some drivers underneath that are helping the business. But did you see any pushout of deals and maybe that's contributing to your confidence around mid-teens growth for 2024? Help us kind of on the confidence for sustained mid-teens growth. And really, how is that selling outside the installed base and penetration of those new security packages going?

首先，湯姆·巴斯（Tom Barth），聽著，你一直表現出色，感謝多年來所有的幫助，只是想回應湯姆·萊頓（Tom Leighton）和埃德（Ed）的觀點。非常感謝多年來的幫助。實際上我想轉到安全部門。看，安全性比我認為我們對第四季的預期要低一些。我知道我們有一些驅動因素正在幫助我們的業務。但您是否看到了任何交易的推出，也許這增強了您對 2024 年青少年成長的信心？幫助我們增強對青少年持續成長的信心。事實上，這些新安全軟體包的外部銷售和滲透情況如何？

This is Ed. Yes. I was actually pretty pleased with our performance, and I didn't see many deals push out. We didn't have any large license deals like we did in Q3. So that might be -- that always sort of skews some of the results. So we don't have any of that. But no deals that really pushed out from a security perspective. Very pleased with what we're seeing with Guardicore, continued great growth there. That's been phenomenal. And that's -- a lot of customers are being driven, new verticals and things like that. The channel has been doing phenomenally well there.

這是艾德。是的。事實上，我對我們的表現非常滿意，而且我沒有看到很多交易推出。我們沒有像第三季那樣達成任何大型許可交易。所以這可能是——這總是會扭曲一些結果。所以我們沒有這些。但沒有任何交易真正從安全角度推動。我們對 Guardicore 所看到的情況非常滿意，該公司持續取得巨大成長。這真是太棒了。那就是——許多客戶正在被新的垂直領域和類似的事情所驅動。該頻道在那裡表現得非常好。

We talked a lot about in our prepared remarks API security. I don't get surprised often, but I've been surprised with the ARPUs there. I've been very pleased with that. That's been very, very good to see. And the strength in -- we talked about the bundles that we have done a lot on the last call. That's continued to go very well, and we're seeing very strong growth in our WAF and in our fraud products, too, bot management and fraud protector. So really, strength across the board. Nothing so far from macroeconomic challenges. That always can change. You'll never know what can happen. But nothing that we saw in Q4.

我們在準備好的發言中討論了很多 API 安全性。我並不經常感到驚訝，但我對那裡的 ARPU 感到驚訝。我對此非常滿意。看到這一點真是非常非常高興。我們談到了我們在上次電話會議上所做的許多捆綁銷售的優勢。這一切進展順利，我們看到 WAF 以及詐騙產品、機器人管理和詐欺保護程序都出現了非常強勁的成長。確實，全面實力。與宏觀經濟挑戰相比，這還不算什麼。這總是可以改變的。你永遠不會知道會發生什麼。但我們在第四季沒有看到任何結果。

As far as the projections for this year, we feel pretty confident. We've generally been relatively conservative with our approach to security growth. We don't factor in any major type of attacks where sometimes we'll see a spike in demand or anything like that. So we feel pretty good with how security is going.

就今年的預測而言，我們非常有信心。我們對於安全成長的方法總體上相對保守。我們不考慮任何主要類型的攻擊，有時我們會看到需求激增或類似情況。因此，我們對安全狀況感到非常滿意。

Maybe just to click down one level into Fatima's earlier question on the CDN side and something that Tom said as well in his prepared remarks. Is there any way to understand how much on the CDN side of the base you plan to essentially -- I don't want to say give away for free, but give away for free to get that compute revenue or help us understand kind of the dynamic between what we should expect between CDN and compute kind of dollar shifting?

也許只是點擊下一層查看 Fatima 之前關於 CDN 方面的問題以及 Tom 在他準備好的演講中所說的內容。有沒有什麼方法可以了解您基本上計劃在基礎的 CDN 方面投入多少——我不想說免費贈送，而是免費贈送以獲得計算收入或幫助我們了解某種我們應該期望CDN 和計算類型之間的美元轉移之間存在什麼動態？

Yes. I think you can't factor in any percentage there at this point. We have been in some discussions with some very large media companies where we would offer discounted or free delivery in return for a significant portion of the compute business. On balance, that would be a great trade for us, much more profitable and much more revenue because at the end of the day, big media companies will spend 10x on compute what they'll spend on delivery and even security. So this is something that we see the hyperscalers do. They will sometimes give away the delivery in return for getting the compute business because that's where the vast majority of the revenue is and very profitable. So we'll keep you advised as we go if that starts to make a material difference.

是的。我認為此時你不能考慮任何百分比。我們一直在與一些非常大的媒體公司進行一些討論，我們將提供折扣或免費交付，以換取很大一部分計算業務。總的來說，這對我們來說是一筆很好的交易，利潤更高，收入也更多，因為最終，大型媒體公司將在計算上花費 10 倍的資金用於交付甚至安全。這就是我們看到超大規模企業所做的事情。他們有時會放棄交付以換取計算業務，因為這是絕大多數收入所在，而且利潤豐厚。因此，如果這開始產生重大影響，我們會隨時通知您。

The next question comes from Keith Weiss of Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的基斯‧韋斯。

Just one for Ed. Throughout [2020], we talked a lot about savings initiatives. We talked a lot about migrating a lot of workloads to (inaudible) savings. And I got to say, like just to put it bluntly, kind of disappointing about this point about the lack of margin expansion in the (inaudible). Is there something holding that back? Or is there some incremental investments perhaps behind Gecko that we're making instead of that? Or (inaudible) question is like, why not more margin (inaudible) given all the efficiency sort of improvements that you guys have been putting in (inaudible).

只給艾德一份。在整個 [2020] 年中，我們談論了很多關於節約舉措的內容。我們討論了很多關於將大量工作負載遷移到（聽不清楚）節省的問題。我不得不說，就像坦白說，關於（聽不清楚）利潤率擴張不足的這一點有點令人失望。有什麼東西阻礙了嗎？或者我們在 Gecko 背後是否有一些增量投資而不是這樣做？或者（聽不清楚）問題是，考慮到你們已經投入的所有效率改進（聽不清楚），為什麼不增加利潤（聽不清楚）。

Yes. I'll take this one, Tom. You broke up a little bit there, Keith, but I think I got the genesis of the question. So yes, we've done, I thought, a great job of making some acquisitions over the last few years, investing in our compute business, spending an awful lot to build out our compute facilities, adding a lot of functionality, growing our security business, doing acquisitions there as well and got back to 30% margin last year and continuing this year.

是的。我要這個，湯姆。基思，你在那裡有點分裂，但我想我明白了這個問題的起源。所以，是的，我認為，我們在過去幾年中進行了一些收購，投資了我們的計算業務，花費了大量資金來構建我們的計算設施，添加了很多功能，提高了我們的安全性，做得很好。業務，也在那裡進行收購，去年利潤率恢復到 30%，今年繼續保持。

We've always said that's been a pretty healthy spot to run the business. We're investing because we see opportunity for growth. And there's always a balance. You can't cut your way to greatness. Perhaps we could cut a few more points, but then what are we leaving on the table. I think we've been pretty disciplined and balanced with our approach in terms of investing for growth and returning to margin.

我們一直說這是一個非常健康的商業經營場所。我們進行投資是因為我們看到了成長機會。並且總有一個平衡。你無法開闢通往偉大的道路。也許我們可以再削減一些要點，但是我們還剩下什麼。我認為我們在成長投資和利潤回報方面一直非常自律且平衡。

We've got some pretty exciting areas. We're seeing great growth in API security. It's still early days there. The product will continue to get better. We're seeing good ARPUs there, so I'm very excited about what we're doing there. We made investments in go-to-market in Guardicore, and that certainly has paid off, and like investments in compute side show some early returns. So again, it's a balanced approach. We're in this for the long term, and I think we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot and not go after some of these big opportunities that we have in front of us.

我們有一些非常令人興奮的領域。我們看到 API 安全性有了巨大的成長。現在還為時過早。產品會不斷變得更好。我們在那裡看到了良好的 ARPU，所以我對我們在那裡所做的事情感到非常興奮。我們對 Guardicore 的上市進行了投資，這當然已經得到了回報，就像計算方面的投資一樣，也顯示了一些早期回報。再說一遍，這是一種平衡的方法。我們是從長遠來看，我認為我們不想搬起石頭砸自己的腳，也不去抓住我們面前的一些重大機會。

The next question comes from Mark Murphy of JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的馬克墨菲。

So Tom, you've done a very solid job with the compute business. And in the prepared comments, you mentioned onboarding of some mission-critical apps. Wondering if you could shed a little light on the pipeline of that kind of critical app that you see coming to you in 2024. And thus far, how well is your infrastructure handling the intensity of those larger workloads in terms of stability, reliability, uptime, et cetera? And then I have a quick follow-up.

Tom，您在計算業務方面做得非常出色。在準備好的評論中，您提到了一些關鍵任務應用程式的加入。想知道您是否可以稍微了解一下 2024 年出現的那種關鍵應用程式的流程。到目前為止，您的基礎設施在穩定性、可靠性和正常運行時間方面處理這些較大工作負載強度的情況如何，等等？然後我會進行快速跟進。

Yes. So signing on compute customers is a big focus for us this year. We have the basic infrastructure in place. Of course, now we're building out Gecko. But just with the basic infrastructure, we're already in 25 cities.

是的。因此，簽約計算客戶是我們今年的一大重點。我們已經具備了基本的基礎設施。當然，現在我們正在建造 Gecko。但光是基礎設施，我們就已經遍佈 25 個城市。

We'll be looking to add on many more mission-critical apps from major enterprises. And some examples, you look at social media, live transcoding, we now have 2 giant companies using that on the platform, one for live sports broadcasting, another for live user-generated content. Another customer, we're hosting e-commerce sites for them in a way that performance is better because closer to the end user and less expensive. AI inferencing for ad targeting, personalizing content. And again, you want to do that really fast. And you just don't have time to backhaul that up into a centralized location. You want to be in a lot of locations around the world to get better performance. And again, we can do it at a lower cost. We've even got a large -- one of the world's largest banks now using us, our edge compute to register credit cards, their user credit cards with Apple Pay because Apple Pay requires you do the registration in 60 milliseconds. And the only way they can get that done fast is to do it on Akamai Connected Cloud.

我們將尋求添加更多來自大型企業的關鍵任務應用程式。舉一些例子，你看看社群媒體、即時轉碼，我們現在有兩家大公司在平台上使用它，一家用於體育直播，另一家用於即時用戶生成的內容。另一位客戶，我們以一種性能更好的方式為他們託管電子商務網站，因為更接近最終用戶且成本更低。用於廣告定位、個人化內容的人工智慧推理。再說一次，你想盡快做到這一點。而且您只是沒有時間將其回傳到集中位置。您希望在世界各地的許多地點獲得更好的性能。而且，我們可以以更低的成本做到這一點。我們甚至有一家大型銀行——世界上最大的銀行之一，現在使用我們的邊緣運算來註冊信用卡，他們的用戶信用卡透過 Apple Pay 註冊，因為 Apple Pay 要求您在 60 毫秒內完成註冊。他們快速完成此任務的唯一方法是在 Akamai Connected Cloud 上完成。

So really, a lot of different applications already on the platform, doing proofs of concept now. So the focus this year, and I think it's a good pipeline, is to be taking on many more mission-critical apps for major enterprises. And of course, we're the first big one. We've got enormous applications already running on the platform and very successfully. And we do it in a multicloud way. And as I talked about earlier, now we have the global load balancing built in and the failover capability, so that it does make for a reliable service that's high performing. So really excited about what's coming this year.

事實上，平台上已經有很多不同的應用程序，現在正在進行概念驗證。因此，今年的重點（我認為這是一個很好的管道）是為大型企業提供更多關鍵任務應用程式。當然，我們是第一個大的。我們已經有大量的應用程式在該平台上運行並且非常成功。我們以多雲方式做到這一點。正如我之前談到的，現在我們內建了全域負載平衡和故障轉移功能，因此它確實可以提供高效能的可靠服務。對今年即將發生的事情感到非常興奮。

Yes. It's great to hear the tie-in with AI inferencing and Apple Pay as well. Ed, I wanted to ask you, you're providing the fiscal year guidance in constant currency. And of course, we all understand it's going to be very difficult to predict the actual fluctuations in the spot market. But if we looked at it at current FX levels, do you think it would skew that 6% to 8% revenue growth level higher or lower, I mean, if we were to try to translate it into reported U.S. dollars in our models right now today?

是的。很高興聽到人工智慧推理和 Apple Pay 的結合。艾德，我想問你，你正在以固定匯率提供財政年度指導。當然，我們都知道預測現貨市場的實際波動將非常困難。但如果我們以當前的外匯水平來看，你認為 6% 至 8% 的收入增長水平會更高還是更低，我的意思是，如果我們現在嘗試將其轉換為我們模型中報告的美元今天？

Yes. Good question. And I think the CPI report today gave you a good view of how things can change so quickly. The market originally had thought there'd be a lot of rate cuts. And now all of a sudden, that doesn't look like it's going to happen. And obviously, currencies and interest rates are very closely aligned. So if you look -- well, I gave you the 12/31 number, so obviously, the dollar has gotten a bit stronger. I gave you the numbers in terms of the total non-U.S. dollars, so you can kind of do some math. It would still be in that range. Obviously, it would be a little bit of a headwind just given that the dollar has gotten stronger since 12/31. But I think you can take our Q1 guidance and sort of fold that in and think about the normal seasonality that you have and come up with an answer, but it would be in -- still be in that range, though.

是的。好問題。我認為今天的消費者物價指數報告讓您很好地了解了事情如何能夠如此迅速地發生變化。市場原本以為會有大幅降息。現在突然間，這看起來不會發生了。顯然，貨幣和利率非常密切。所以，如果你看一下——好吧，我給了你 12/31 的數字，所以很明顯，美元已經有點走強了。我給了你非美元總額的數字，所以你可以做一些數學計算。仍然會在這個範圍內。顯然，考慮到美元自 12 月 31 日以來一直走強，這將是一個小小的阻力。但我認為你可以考慮我們第一季的指導，並將其納入考慮正常的季節性，並得出答案，但它仍然在這個範圍內。

And Ed, just to clarify, so it's still in that 6% to 8% range if we put it in the USD? Or are you saying it's still kind of mid-single digit but maybe something like a point lower?

Ed，只是想澄清一下，如果我們以美元計算，它仍然在 6% 到 8% 的範圍內？或者你是說它仍然是中等個位數，但可能會低一點？

Well, no, I'd say if you're using the spot rate as of today, the simple math would suggest that it is, yes. If you looked at -- just take the midpoint of the guide, right? If I just use that and what the impact of the dollar has been, it's still in that range. Now you had asked could it (inaudible). Obviously, the dollar was at [101] back at 12/31, it was at [106] in November. And so it's bouncing all over the place. Obviously, if it were to move, you can do the math. 5 or 6 or points lower, you could potentially get on the other side of that. So again, it's just -- I may end up giving you guys a massive range that wouldn't be helpful. So what I'd rather do is just give you guys the tools that you can do it yourself and look at it, really get an understanding of the core business underneath that. (inaudible) I think, is much more important to understand.

嗯，不，我想說，如果您使用今天的即期匯率，簡單的數學表明，是的。如果你看——就取指南的中點，對嗎？如果我只使用它以及美元的影響，它仍然在這個範圍內。現在你問可以嗎（聽不清楚）。顯然，美元在12/31時為[101]，11月為[106]。所以它到處彈跳。顯然，如果它要移動，你可以做數學計算。 5 或 6 點或更低，您可能會陷入困境。再說一次，這只是——我最終可能會給你們一個沒有幫助的巨大範圍。因此，我寧願做的就是為你們提供可以自己完成的工具，然後查看它，真正了解背後的核心業務。 （聽不清楚）我認為，理解更為重要。

I want to also thank Tom Barth for a lot of great interactions over the years.

我還要感謝湯姆·巴特（Tom Barth）多年來進行的許多精彩互動。

The next question comes from Madeline Brooks of Bank of America.

下一個問題來自美國銀行的馬德琳·布魯克斯。

Just one on security. Outside of Guardicore, just wanted to touch on the rest of the Zero Trust portfolio trends that you've seen and maybe if you're feeling any additional competitive pressure now that the market has really expanded there. And then I have one follow-up.

只是關於安全的一件事。除了 Guardicore 之外，我只是想談談您所看到的其他零信任投資組合趨勢，也許您是否感受到了任何額外的競爭壓力，因為市場已經真正擴大了。然後我有一個後續行動。

Yes. In web app firewall, we've been the market leader there for 10 years since we started that marketplace with web app firewall as a service. And after 10 years, you do get competition, but we're still the market leader by a good margin, and that's a good growth business for us. We've added a lot of capabilities on top, bot management and more recently, account protector, client-side protection, so that customers of commerce sites can stay safe by going to the site. You're going to need that now for compliance. There's brand protector. So that's identifying the phishing sites and keeping them from stealing user information. Of course, we've been doing denial of service protection for a long, long time now, market leadership position there.

是的。在 Web 應用程式防火牆領域，自從我們以 Web 應用程式防火牆即服務啟動該市場以來，我們已經連續 10 年成為市場領導者。 10 年後，你確實會遇到競爭，但我們仍然以大幅優勢保持市場領先地位，這對我們來說是一項良好的成長業務。我們在頂部添加了許多功能，包括機器人管理以及最近的帳戶保護器、客戶端保護，以便商業網站的客戶可以透過造訪網站來保持安全。為了合規性，您現在需要它。有品牌保護器。這就是識別網路釣魚網站並防止它們竊取用戶資訊。當然，我們長期以來一直在進行拒絕服務保護，並在那裡處於市場領導地位。

And then you have on the enterprise side, of course, Guardicore, as we talked about, doing very well. And I'm really excited about API security. I think over the longer term, that becomes as big a marketplace and just as important as web app firewall has become. And our goal there is to become the market leader. And already in the go-to-market motion, there's a strong synergy between web app firewall and API security. We built a very easy way to do a proof of concept for our web app firewall customers, and that's where we're getting a lot of early traction.

當然，在企業方面，正如我們所說，Guardicore 做得非常好。我對 API 安全性感到非常興奮。我認為從長遠來看，這將成為一個與 Web 應用程式防火牆一樣大的市場和重要的市場。我們的目標是成為市場領導者。並且已經在進入市場的行動中，Web 應用程式防火牆和 API 安全性之間存在著強大的協同作用。我們建立了一種非常簡單的方法來為我們的 Web 應用程式防火牆客戶進行概念驗證，這就是我們早期獲得大量關注的地方。

Also, we've integrated with a lot of the load balancers and other firewalls out there, so that we can sign on new customers who are not using Akamai CDN or a web app firewall. So I think there's a variety of areas in security that are working very well for us.

此外，我們還整合了許多負載平衡器和其他防火牆，以便我們可以吸引不使用 Akamai CDN 或 Web 應用程式防火牆的新客戶。所以我認為安全領域的許多領域對我們來說都非常有效。

Got it. And then just one quick one on compute, too. I think if we think about earnings that have happened so far, especially with hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft, Meta, we've kind of heard of this theme of the optimization inflection in terms of cloud computing, meaning maybe this year, we're going to see a little bit more investment in new workloads. I'm just wondering if you've heard of any of those trends among your customers who are thinking about compute for the first time or maybe if you're seeing increased appetite for compute for this coming year versus 2023.

知道了。然後還有一個關於計算的快速介紹。我認為，如果我們考慮迄今為止發生的收益，特別是像 AWS、微軟、Meta 這樣的超大規模供應商，我們已經聽說過雲端運算的最佳化變形主題，這意味著也許今年，我們將會看到對新工作負載的更多投資。我只是想知道您是否聽說過首次考慮計算的客戶中的任何這些趨勢，或者您是否發現與 2023 年相比，明年對計算的興趣有所增加。

Yes. Compute is an enormous marketplace and growing rapidly, and there's always new applications that are being created and not just migrating from a data center into the cloud, but just brand-new applications. And so that's where we're seeing a lot of traction, also in some cases, lift and shift out of a data center or out of a hyperscaler. But it's just an enormous marketplace and a great place for us to operate. And even those that are optimizing that's sort of, I guess, not such a great thing for the hyperscalers, but we're part of that trend. It's great for us because we can help customers reduce cloud spend. And we've gotten very good feedback from our early adopters of Akamai Connected Cloud that they're saving a lot of money. So the trend to optimization is a positive thing for Akamai.

是的。計算是一個巨大的市場，並且增長迅速，總是有新的應用程式被創建，不僅僅是從數據中心遷移到雲，而且只是全新的應用程式。因此，這就是我們看到很大吸引力的地方，在某些情況下，也從資料中心或超大規模企業中提升和轉移。但這只是一個巨大的市場，也是我們經營業務的好地方。我想，即使是那些正在優化的公司，對於超大規模企業來說也不是一件好事，但我們是這一趨勢的一部分。這對我們來說非常好，因為我們可以幫助客戶減少雲端支出。我們從 Akamai Connected Cloud 的早期採用者那裡得到了非常好的回饋，認為他們節省了很多錢。因此，最佳化趨勢對於 Akamai 來說是一件正面的事情。

The next question comes from Rishi Jaluria of RBC.

下一個問題來自 RBC 的 Rishi Jaluria。

Let me echo my colleagues in thanking Tom Barth. It's been a great decade working with you and really excited for your next chapter. I wanted to drill on to -- maybe going back to Gecko. I guess, number one, can you talk a little bit about edge inferencing and what those use cases look like? It's one of those things that we hear a lot of talk about in theory. But maybe in practicality as you're talking to your customers and having those conversations, what can that look like? And what positions Gecko uniquely for that?

讓我與我的同事一樣感謝湯姆·巴斯。與您合作度過了美好的十年，我們對您的下一個篇章感到非常興奮。我想深入探討——也許回到 Gecko。我想，第一，您能談談邊緣推理以及這些用例是什麼樣的嗎？這是我們在理論上經常聽到的事情之一。但也許在實踐中，當您與客戶交談並進行這些對話時，那會是什麼樣子？ Gecko 在這方面有何獨特之處？

And then maybe financially, to the extent -- I know it's still early. Are you assuming real Gecko contribution on the compute line in your guidance for the year? Or is that something that as it gets traction, could lead to more upside beyond what you modeled?

然後也許在經濟上，在某種程度上——我知道現在還為時過早。您是否假設 Gecko 在今年的指導中對計算線做出了真正的貢獻？或者，當它受到關注時，是否會帶來超出您模型的更多好處？

Great. So let me start with edge inferencing. And so some of the examples I gave, that's exactly what's happening for commerce sites in figuring out in real time, what content you're actually going to give to the user that's coming to the site, ad targeting, what ad do they get? Anything that involves personalization.

偉大的。那麼讓我從邊緣推斷開始。所以我給的一些例子，這正是商業網站即時計算出的情況，你實際上要向訪問該網站的用戶提供什麼內容，廣告定位，他們會得到什麼廣告？任何涉及個性化的事情。

On the security side, a ton of inferencing is used to analyze real-time data. For example, even our own bot management solution, is that entity that's coming to the site, is it a bot or is it a human? And even if it's a human and they have the right credentials, is it the right human? And you use AI and inferencing for that, and you got to do it really fast. You can't afford to send it back to the centralized data center because you got a massive number of people that you've got to process in real time, especially if you're doing some kind of live event.

在安全性方面，使用大量推理來分析即時數據。例如，即使是我們自己的機器人管理解決方案，造訪該網站的實體是機器人還是人類？即使這是一個人並且他們擁有正確的憑據，它是正確的人嗎？為此，你需要使用人工智慧和推理，而且必須非常快速地完成。您無法將其發送回集中式資料中心，因為您必須即時處理大量人員，尤其是在進行某種現場活動時。

And so being at the edge matters because you can be scalable, you can handle it locally, you get great performance. You can make it be real time. And Akamai's unique value proposition with Gecko is that we're going to be able to now support this not in a few cities, but in 100 cities by the end of this year. So anything you can put in a VM, virtual machine, which is most things, you're going to be able to do that in 100 cities and then ultimately, in hundreds of cities because we can put this in general Akamai edge PoPs. And then next will be containers, which is pretty much the rest of what you do in cloud computing. And then to be able to spin it all up automatically. It's a whole new concept for compute that I think is very powerful. And there's a high overlap of wanting to do that with inferencing engines, where you're trying to do something intelligent based on that end user or that entity that's interacting with the application.

因此，處於邊緣很重要，因為您可以擴展，可以在本地處理它，您可以獲得出色的效能。你可以讓它成為即時的。 Akamai 與 Gecko 的獨特價值主張是，我們現在將能夠在今年年底之前在 100 個城市而不是少數幾個城市提供支持。因此，您可以將任何東西放入VM、虛擬機器（這是大多數東西）中，您將能夠在100 個城市中做到這一點，最終在數百個城市中做到這一點，因為我們可以將其放入一般的Akamai 邊緣PoP 中。接下來是容器，這幾乎是您在雲端運算中所做的其餘工作。然後能夠自動旋轉一切。這是一個全新的計算概念，我認為它非常強大。想要與推理引擎實現這一點有很大的重疊，您試圖根據最終用戶或與應用程式互動的實體來做一些聰明的事情。

Now in terms of Gecko, we're just now in the early stages of getting it deployed. We're in 9 cities, we'll get the tenth new city up in another month or so. By the end of the year, we'll be in a total of 100 cities supporting compute. So not a lot of revenue is factored into the guidance based on Gecko for this year. That would come more next year. So this year's revenue guidance is based on the original 25 core compute regions that we've set up by the end of last year.

現在就 Gecko 而言，我們正處於部署的早期階段。我們有9個城市，再過一個月左右我們就會建立第十個新城市。到今年年底，我們將在總共 100 個城市支援計算。因此，今年基於 Gecko 的指導中並未考慮太多收入。明年會更多。因此，今年的收入指導是基於我們在去年年底建立的原始 25 個核心計算區域。

Now we will deploy this, of course, just as fast as we can and as customers want to adopt it. And hopefully, we have the situation where we want to build out more, get more compute capacity because there's so much demand for compute on Akamai. Ed, do you have any color you want to add around the guidance there?

當然，現在我們將按照客戶想要採用的速度盡可能快速地部署它。希望我們能夠建立更多、獲得更多運算能力，因為 Akamai 上的運算需求非常大。 Ed，您想在指導周圍添加任何顏色嗎？

No, I think you captured it right, Tom. We don't -- we're not really anticipating anything. I mean one thing we are doing this year is we are making changes to our comp plan with our reps, so that they all have to sell compute this year. So you could see things, reps get very creative. I learned in sales that comp drives behavior. So by leaning in here and making it something that all reps have to do, we should see a lot more use cases, a lot more opportunities, et cetera. So there's always a chance that we could be surprised here with the creativity of our field bringing us opportunities, but we did not factor in anything material as it relates to Gecko.

不，我認為你抓住了它，湯姆。我們沒有——我們並沒有真正期待任何事情。我的意思是，我們今年正在做的一件事是我們正在與我們的代表一起改變我們的補償計劃，以便他們今年都必須銷售計算。所以你可以看到事情，代表們變得非常有創意。我在銷售中了解到，競爭會驅動行為。因此，透過在這裡傾斜並使其成為所有代表都必須做的事情，我們應該看到更多的用例、更多的機會等等。因此，我們總是有可能對我們領域的創造力為我們帶來的機會感到驚訝，但我們沒有考慮任何與 Gecko 相關的材料。

The next question comes from Michael Elias of TD Cowen.

下一個問題來自 TD Cowen 的 Michael Elias。

Two if I may. Just first on Gecko. Presumably, the PoPs that you have, they are already supporting security and delivery workloads. Just from an architecture perspective, can you help us think about what expanding the compute platform into these PoPs mean? Is it just additional co-location deployments and on the CapEx side, networking gear and servers? Any color that you could give there in terms of the mechanics of what the expansion would look like?

如果可以的話，兩個。首先是 Gecko。想必，您擁有的 PoP 已經支援安全和交付工作負載。僅從架構角度來看，您能否幫助我們思考將運算平台擴展到這些 PoP 意味著什麼？是否只是額外的主機代管部署以及資本支出方面的網路設備和伺服器？就擴展的外觀機製而言，您可以給出任何顏色嗎？

And then second, Ed, last year, you were talking about elongation of enterprise sales cycles. Just curious what you're seeing in terms of the buying behavior of your customer base. Any notable callouts there?

其次，艾德，去年您談到了企業銷售週期的延長。只是好奇您在客戶群的購買行為上看到了什麼。有什麼值得注意的標註嗎？

All right. So I'll take the first one. With Gecko, that is generally speaking an existing Akamai edge PoPs. And in particular, they tend to be the larger ones where we already have a lot of equipment that's already connected into our backbone, and what we'd be doing is adding additional servers. And for compute, it would be a beefier server and additional co-lo for those servers. But all the other infrastructure is generally already there, and it's already connected in and we already have delivery and security operating there. So it does become a very efficient way for us to deploy Gecko. And Ed, do you want to take the second one there?

好的。所以我會選第一個。對於 Gecko，一般來說是現有的 Akamai 邊緣 PoP。特別是，它們往往是較大的設備，我們已經有很多設備已經連接到我們的主幹網，而我們要做的就是添加額外的伺服器。對於計算來說，這將是一個更強大的伺服器，並為這些伺服器提供額外的主機託管。但所有其他基礎設施通常都已經在那裡，並且已經連接起來，我們已經在那裡進行了交付和安全操作。所以它確實成為我們部署Gecko的一種非常有效率的方式。艾德，你想帶第二個去那裡嗎？

Sure. Yes. So I think the trend, obviously, acquiring new customers is always challenging in an environment like this. The one probably exception to that is in the security space. That tends to be something that obviously, now with the requirements with the SEC reporting and added disclosure with CISOs being now potentially criminally charged for breaches and things like that, Audit Committees spending more and more time on cybersecurity as a topic. That tends to be a budget that: one, you don't typically cut; and two, you're generally adding to.

當然。是的。因此，我認為顯然，在這樣的環境中獲取新客戶總是具有挑戰性的趨勢。唯一的例外可能是安全領域。顯然，隨著 SEC 報告的要求以及 CISO 可能因違規等行為受到刑事指控的增加披露，審計委員會將越來越多的時間花在網路安全主題上。這往往是這樣的預算：第一，你通常不會削減；第二，你通常不會削減預算。還有兩個，你通常會加。

But yes, new customers are challenging. I do think this kind of environment helps us what we were just talking about in the last few questions around optimizing cloud spend. Certainly, if you've seen what we've done, we've seen us put a tremendous amount of money. So I think that can also help us in this particular environment. But definitely, new customer acquisition is a bit more challenging, but we're still doing pretty well. Obviously, the environment can change. But it hasn't been a major factor for us yet.

但是，是的，新客戶確實具有挑戰性。我確實認為這種環境有助於我們解決我們在最後幾個有關優化雲端支出的問題中所討論的問題。當然，如果您看過我們所做的事情，您會看到我們投入了大量資金。所以我認為這也可以幫助我們在這個特殊的環境。但毫無疑問，獲取新客戶更具挑戰性，但我們仍然做得很好。顯然，環境是可以改變的。但這對我們來說還不是一個主要因素。

The next question comes from Ray McDonough of Guggenheim Securities.

下一個問題來自古根漢證券公司的雷麥克唐納。

Maybe, Tom, just a follow-up to a prior question. As we think about Gecko and you mentioned that your edge sites right now don't have full stack compute. But how much work is done to be -- to converge what you already have at your edge sites and what you've done in terms of building out Linode's capabilities? Should we expect there to be a common software stack across both edge and centralized sites? And if so, is the plan to have that in place by year-end?

湯姆，也許這只是先前問題的後續。當我們考慮 Gecko 時，您提到您的邊緣網站目前沒有完整的堆疊運算。但是，要整合邊緣網站已有的資源以及在建立 Linode 功能方面所做的工作，需要做多少工作呢？我們是否應該期望跨邊緣站點和集中站點都有一個通用的軟體堆疊？如果是的話，計劃在年底前落實到位嗎？

Yes. Great question. So what we're doing now is, as I mentioned in the last question, deploying more hardware in existing edge regions and generally the larger edge regions. We already have network there. We already have delivery, security located there. So there's some additional co-lo and servers. And yes, the goal is to put it all on one common software stack.

是的。很好的問題。因此，正如我在上一個問題中提到的，我們現在正在做的是在現有邊緣區域（通常是較大的邊緣區域）部署更多硬體。我們那裡已經有網路了。我們已經在那裡安排了送貨和保安。因此需要一些額外的主機託管和伺服器。是的，我們的目標是將所有這些都放在一個通用軟體堆疊上。

Now initially, we have -- the Linode stack is moving into these edge PoPs for Gecko. But as we -- once we get the support for virtual machines and containers, then next, we want to add the software stack that we have for delivery and for security and for function as a service that automatically, for example, spins up JavaScript apps in milliseconds based on end-user demand. We want all of that to be operating on containers and VMs, so that you don't have to think ahead of time about how many VMs do you want in each of these hundreds of cities. It just happens based on end user demand. You automatically get new ones spun up, load balancing, failover, really a very compelling concept. And that doesn't exist in the cloud marketplace today. That is the vision. I think you really nailed it when you talked about the common software stack because only Akamai has that full edge platform today, that software stack around delivery and security that will be now including compute.

現在，我們最初 - Linode 堆疊正在遷移到 Gecko 的這些邊緣 PoP。但是，一旦我們獲得了對虛擬機器和容器的支持，接下來，我們想要添加用於交付、安全性和功能即服務的軟體堆疊，例如自動啟動 JavaScript 應用程式根據最終用戶的需求以毫秒為單位。我們希望所有這些都在容器和虛擬機器上運行，這樣您就不必提前考慮在這數百個城市中每個城市需要多少虛擬機器。它只是根據最終用戶的需求而發生。你會自動啟動新的、負載平衡、故障轉移，這確實是一個非常引人注目的概念。而如今的雲端市場中並不存在這種情況。這就是願景。我認為，當您談論通用軟體堆疊時，您確實講得很清楚，因為目前只有 Akamai 擁有完整的邊緣平台，即圍繞交付和安全性的軟體堆疊，現在將包括運算。

And maybe as a quick follow-up, Ed, as we think about the expansion of the Linode footprint last year, can you help us understand as much as you can, how much of the space currently built out was for internal use purposes to help with that third-party cloud savings versus space that's online now that's revenue generating? And I know we've talked about this in the past, but any color around what we should expect from a customer utilization perspective that might be embedded in your guidance as we move through year-end? That would be helpful.

也許作為一個快速的後續行動，Ed，當我們考慮去年 Linode 足跡的擴張時，您能否幫助我們盡可能多地了解，目前建造的空間中有多少是用於內部使用目的，以幫助與現在在線的空間相比，第三方雲端節省的費用能產生收入嗎？我知道我們過去已經討論過這個問題，但是從客戶利用率的角度來看，我們應該期待什麼，這些顏色可能會嵌入到我們年底的指導中？那會有幫助的。

Yes. Sure. So the majority of the growth in the compute guidance is going to come from enterprise compute. So the stuff that we built out for the last year. So if you kind of go back and look at the math in terms of -- we've kind of said roughly speaking, $1 of CapEx is $1 of revenue. You can kind of look at what we're doing for compute build-out now, what we did last year. We said we got about $100 million roughly for our -- all in for our internal use. So that leaves a pretty significant amount left for customer demand.

是的。當然。因此，計算指南的大部分成長將來自企業運算。這是我們去年打造的東西。因此，如果你回頭看數學——我們粗略地說，1 美元的資本支出就是 1 美元的收入。您可以看看我們現在在計算擴展方面所做的事情以及我們去年所做的事情。我們說我們大約獲得了大約 1 億美元——全部供我們內部使用。因此，這為客戶需求留下了相當大的數量。

Now obviously, the way people buy today, they pick a location, et cetera. So it's not going to be exactly a dollar for dollar right now, but it's a general rule of thumb. So I would say the majority of what we built out is for customer usage.

顯然，人們今天的購買方式是選擇地點等等。因此，現在不會完全是一美元對一美元，但這是一般的經驗法則。所以我想說，我們建造的大部分內容都是供客戶使用的。

The next question comes from Tim Horan of Oppenheimer.

下一個問題來自奧本海默的蒂姆·霍蘭。

Following up on Ray's question. So I'm assuming the goal here is to get to one single platform where customers can access the full range of services relatively easily on, I guess, one on ramp-up. When do you think you'll get there? And secondly, the Gecko product, it sounds like is this completely serverless? And is it a development platform also?

繼續雷的問題。因此，我假設這裡的目標是建立一個單一平台，讓客戶可以相對輕鬆地存取全方位的服務，我想，這是一個正在啟動的平台。你認為你什麼時候能到達那裡？其次，Gecko 產品，聽起來是完全無伺服器的嗎？它也是一個開發平台嗎？

Yes. So I think one platform really in terms of being able to do everything together and all the same software so that we have our edge software running with the Linode software to spin up VMs and containers, that's not until 2025. We are, first, combining the infrastructure and of course, customers can buy the services as a package. We have common reporting now in many cases. But in terms of doing all the automatic spinning up and truly serverless use for VMs and containers, think 2025 for that. And let's see. So -- and what was the other question you had?

是的。因此，我認為一個平台真正能夠同時使用所有相同的軟體來完成所有操作，這樣我們的邊緣軟體就可以與 Linode 軟體一起運行來啟動虛擬機器和容器，這要到 2025 年。基礎設施，當然，客戶可以打包購買服務。我們現在在很多情況下都有共同的報告。但就虛擬機器和容器的所有自動旋轉和真正無伺服器使用而言，請考慮 2025 年。讓我們看看。那麼—您的另一個問題是什麼？

So the new product, Gecko, it is primarily a serverless product, it sounds like. And do you have all the support there for developers to completely run their applications on this new platform?

所以新產品 Gecko 聽起來主要是無伺服器產品。你們是否為開發人員提供了在這個新平台上完全運行他們的應用程式的所有支援？

Yes. And it's -- well, it depends how you define serverless. Initially with Gecko, you would operate it the same way you would Linode. You decide how many VMs and containers you want in the various cities. And it is very developer-friendly, works just like Linode. So if you're familiar there, that would now work in -- well, at the end of the year, 100 cities for your virtual machines.

是的。這取決於您如何定義無伺服器。最初使用 Gecko，您可以像使用 Linode 一樣操作它。您可以決定在各個城市需要多少虛擬機器和容器。而且它對開發人員非常友好，工作原理與 Linode 類似。因此，如果您熟悉那裡，那麼到今年年底，您的虛擬機器將在 100 個城市中發揮作用。

Now if you define serverless to be -- which doesn't exist today at the marketplace for VMs and containers, they just spin up automatically like we do today for function as a service and for JavaScript, that's what comes 2025.

現在，如果您將無伺服器定義為——目前虛擬機器和容器市場上還不存在無伺服器，那麼它們就會自動啟動，就像我們今天對函數即服務和JavaScript 所做的那樣，這就是2025 年的情況。

If you don't mind me asking me, it sounds a lot like what Cloudflare is doing, but you're saying it doesn't exist today. Can you maybe talk about a little bit what's different, what you're doing?

如果你不介意我問我，這聽起來很像 Cloudflare 正在做的事情，但你說它今天還不存在。您能談談您正在做的事情有什麼不同嗎？

Yes. That's a great question. They don't support VMs or containers at all, never mind serverless or anything else, just -- they don't have support for that. They don't do this full stack cloud computing.

是的。這是一個很好的問題。他們根本不支援虛擬機器或容器，更不用說無伺服器或其他任何東西，只是——他們不支援這一點。他們不做這種全端雲端運算。

The next question comes from Alex Henderson of Needham.

下一個問題來自 Needham 的 Alex Henderson。

So it seems pretty clear that Guardicore has been a critical piece of your security growth and obviously is perturbing the overall growth rate. I was hoping you could give us some sense of what the security product lines, excluding Guardicore, look like in terms of their growth rates. Any sizing of that growth would be -- even a ballpark, would be quite helpful.

因此，很明顯，Guardicore 一直是安全成長的關鍵部分，並且顯然正在擾亂整體成長率。我希望您能讓我們了解一下除 Guardicore 之外的安全產品線的成長率。任何成長規模——即使是一個大概的規模——都會非常有幫助。

And then second, I was hoping you could talk a little bit about your -- you mentioned inferencing, but I think it came in kind of as an afterthought as opposed to the primary focus. Can you talk about your involvement in AI inferencing at the edge and to what extent that requires either the 2025 kind of structure or what needs you have there and whether you're putting GPUs out of the edge in order to facilitate that?

其次，我希望你能談談你的——你提到了推理，但我認為它是事後的想法，而不是主要焦點。您能否談談您對邊緣人工智慧推理的參與，以及在多大程度上需要 2025 年的結構，或者您在那裡有什麼需求，以及您是否將 GPU 置於邊緣之外以促進這一點？

Ed, do you want to go with the first one, and I'll take the second one?

艾德，你想選第一個，我選第二個嗎？

Sure. Why don't I go to the first one. On the spirit of it being a year-end call, I'll break out these numbers at a high level for you, but won't be doing it every quarter. So if I look at the -- what we used to -- what we called the app and API security bucket, that's our largest bucket, that includes bot management, our fraud products, our web app firewall, our new API security product. That's actually in Q4 growing over 20%. So that's been incredible. Guardicore itself, if I normalize for the onetime software that we did last Q4, is growing at about 63%. Infrastructure and services are growing sub-10%.

當然。我為什麼不去第一個呢？本著年終電話會議的精神，我將為您詳細介紹這些數字，但不會每個季度都這樣做。因此，如果我看看我們過去所說的應用程式和 API 安全桶，這是我們最大的桶，其中包括機器人管理、我們的詐騙產品、我們的 Web 應用程式防火牆、我們新的 API 安全產品。實際上第四季成長超過 20%。所以這太不可思議了。如果我對我們上個季度所做的一次性軟體進行標準化，Guardicore 本身的成長率約為 63%。基礎設施和服務成長低於 10%。

Just to be clear, is this the full year growth rate? Or is this the fourth quarter growth rate?

需要明確的是，這是全年成長率嗎？還是這是第四季的成長率？

This is the fourth quarter growth rate. The full year, I don't have (inaudible).

這是第四季的成長率。全年，我沒有（聽不清楚）。

That's (inaudible). I just needed to know what it was.

那是（聽不清楚）。我只需要知道那是什麼。

Okay. Yes. In terms of the question around inferencing and AI and so forth, yes, we're building full stack compute to have great performance at a lower price point and have that available in hundreds of cities. And one of the many things that you would do with that is AI inferencing, and that's not an afterthought. In fact, we've been using AI in our products for, well, 10 years. Bot management, for example, runs on Akamai Connected Cloud. It's one of many things that run on it.

好的。是的。就推理和人工智慧等問題而言，是的，我們正在建立全端運算，以較低的價格提供出色的效能，並在數百個城市提供這種服務。你可以用它做的許多事情之一就是人工智慧推理，這不是事後的想法。事實上，我們在產品中使用人工智慧已經 10 年了。例如，機器人管理在 Akamai Connected Cloud 上運作。這是其上運行的眾多事物之一。

So not an afterthought. There is an enormous amount of buzz now about AI. And I think a lot of that is justified. And I think there's a lot more compute going to be consumed because of AI. And it is a strong use case among our customers that are using Akamai Connected Cloud. That said, it's not all AI. In fact, our biggest customers are doing media workflow, doing live transcoding. And that's not using AI. So I think AI is an important use case, one of several use cases.

所以不是事後的想法。現在關於人工智慧的討論非常多。我認為其中很多都是合理的。我認為人工智慧將消耗更多的計算。這是我們使用 Akamai Connected Cloud 的客戶中一個強大的用例。也就是說，這並不全然是人工智慧。事實上，我們最大的客戶正在做媒體工作流程，進行即時轉碼。這還不是使用人工智慧。所以我認為人工智慧是一個重要的用例，也是幾個用例之一。

Now in particular, you asked '24 versus '25, it's being done already on our platforms. There's no need to wait until the end of the year unless you want to do it in 100 cities, then that comes at the end of the year. No need to wait to '25 when the instances are spun up automatically instead of by design ahead of time the way compute works today.

現在特別是，您問“24 與 25”，這已經在我們的平台上完成了。不用等到年底，除非你想在100個城市做，那麼年底就可以了。無需等到 25 年實例就會自動啟動，而不是按照當今計算的工作方式提前設計。

So you talked about GPUs. Akamai has GPUs deployed. We're deploying more. We've used them in the past for graphics and going forward, probably use them for gen AI uses. We're not really deploying them right now in the edge PoPs. And that's not -- because you don't need to. It's not cost-effective. In the edge PoPs, you're going to be doing the inferencing. And for the inferencing, you can use GPUs, but we're also using CPUs. And right now, we get a better ROI on the CPUs. So I guess there's a lot of confusion there as well. Now GPUs are critical for doing training for especially large language models, and that's going to be done in the core and we're not supporting that as a key use case today.

所以你談到了 GPU。 Akamai 已部署 GPU。我們正在部署更多。我們過去曾將它們用於圖形處理，未來可能會將它們用於生成人工智慧用途。我們現在並沒有真正將它們部署在邊緣 PoP 中。那不是——因為你不需要這樣做。這不划算。在邊緣 PoP 中，您將進行推理。對於推理，您可以使用 GPU，但我們也使用 CPU。現在，我們在 CPU 上獲得了更好的投資報酬率。所以我想那裡也有很多混亂。現在，GPU 對於特別大型語言模型的訓練至關重要，這將在核心中完成，我們今天不支援將其作為關鍵用例。

We could, in theory, right, we have all the technology to do it, but that's not where we're focused in terms of getting the best ROI for our platform. And for that matter, most of the work with these models, most of the compute is done when you're using them for the inferencing. You do the training and then you spend just so it learns, you get it ready to go, and then you operate it. And it's the operation where most -- the vast majority of the cycles are, and that can be done on CPUs and in many cases, the cases I mentioned, for personalization, for security, for data analytics. That's done on the edge more as good reason to be done there using CPU-based hardware.

從理論上講，我們可以，我們擁有所有技術來做到這一點，但這不是我們為我們的平台獲得最佳投資回報率的重點。就此而言，這些模型的大部分工作和大部分計算都是在使用它們進行推理時完成的。你進行培訓，然後花時間讓它學習，準備好運行，然後操作它。這是大多數週期的操​​作，並且可以在 CPU 上完成，在許多情況下，我提到的情況，用於個人化、安全性和資料分析。這是在邊緣完成的，這更有理由使用基於 CPU 的硬體來完成。

The next question comes from Jonathan Ho of William Blair.

下一個問題來自威廉布萊爾的喬納森何。

Just one question from me. How important is the global load balancing capability? And what does that maybe mean for your ability to either attract more customers or to drive revenue from that product?

我只想問一個問題。全球負載平衡能力有多重要？這對於您吸引更多客戶或增加該產品收入的能力意味著什麼？

Yes. That's very helpful because it makes it much more scalable. You have failover, so much more reliable. And I think it's a basic capability, of course, we've had for forever it seems in delivery and security, and now that's available for compute. So I think that's important and that greatly increases the market we can go after for compute.

是的。這非常有幫助，因為它使其更具可擴展性。您有故障轉移，因此更加可靠。當然，我認為這是一項基本功能，我們在交付和安全方面似乎永遠擁有它，現在可用於計算。所以我認為這很重要，它大大增加了我們可以追求的計算市場。

Our last question will come from Rudy Kessinger of D.A. Davidson.

我們的最後一個問題將來自地方檢察官魯迪·凱辛格 (Rudy Kessinger)。戴維森。

Ed, if my math is correct, even if I exclude the $100 million in CapEx and compute last year intended for moving over internal workloads, between last year and this year, it looks to be about $400 million in compute CapEx. And going back to that kind of $1 in CapEx equals $1 of revenue capacity, $400 million in CapEx, roughly $200 million of compute growth '24 versus '22. Do you feel like you guys are maybe overbuilding at all? Or what gives you the confidence, I guess, in the pipeline and the ramping usage to spend so much on another round of build-out this year when we're not yet seeing growth accelerate, right? You're guiding to 20% growth next year that's flat with Q4.

Ed，如果我的數學正確的話，即使我排除去年用於轉移內部工作負載的 1 億美元資本支出和計算，從去年到今年，計算資本支出看起來約為 4 億美元。回到 1 美元的資本支出等於 1 美元的收入容量，4 億美元的資本支出，大約 2 億美元的計算增長（24 年與 22 年相比）。你覺得你們可能過度建設了嗎？或者，我猜是什麼讓您對今年的另一輪擴建投入如此多的資金和不斷增加的使用量，而我們還沒有看到增長加速，對嗎？您預計明年的成長率為 20%，與第四季持平。

Yes. So I'll just -- let me address that part first. So I would say if you look at the underlying components of what's growing, it's actually that enterprise compute opportunity that's growing very, very, very fast. Like those numbers, the percentages, would be kind of foolish to break out because they're going off of small numbers and adding to them very big numbers. Now also part of our strategy is to be competitive and have big core centers in many cities, and that does require a larger build-out. So there's a lot of capacity that we have to sell. And then also, we're seeing demand in certain cities. You have to build out more capacity where you're getting demand. And then the Gecko sites that we're building out, it's not a significant -- I mean, it's a decent amount of capital. But I think that is another big key differentiator for us. And as Tom mentioned, we think there's a big opportunity there.

是的。所以我先——讓我先談談這一部分。所以我想說，如果你看看成長的底層組成部分，其實是企業電腦會成長得非常、非常、非常快。就像這些數字一樣，百分比的突破有點愚蠢，因為它們是從小數字開始，然後加上非常大的數字。現在我們策略的一部分是保持競爭力並在許多城市擁有大型核心中心，這確實需要更大的擴張。因此，我們必須出售大量產能。此外，我們也看到某些城市的需求。您必須在有需求的地方建立更多的產能。然後我們正在建立的 Gecko 網站，這並不是一筆重要的資金——我的意思是，這是一筆相當可觀的資本。但我認為這是我們另一個重要的差異化因素。正如湯姆所提到的，我們認為那裡有很大的機會。

So I know a lot of people have been questioning us being able to take on large workloads, et cetera. We clearly have a lot of capacity out there. As I talked about earlier, we've made the change with our compensation plans where our reps now have to sell compute. So we're going to see a lot more at bats. We've done a tremendous amount with the platform in terms of adding functionality. We built out the platform, connected it to our backbone, and we have a lot of new compute partners. The platform is ready to be sold. So we're pretty optimistic about it. And I think we're building in a pretty responsible manner. As I talked about, our CapEx is relatively modest for this business right now. So I think we're in pretty good shape.

所以我知道很多人一直在質疑我們是否能夠承擔大量工作負載等等。我們顯然擁有大量產能。正如我之前談到的，我們已經對薪酬計劃進行了更改，我們的代表現在必須出售計算。所以我們會看到更多的擊球。在添加功能方面，我們已經在該平台上做了大量工作。我們建立了平台，將其連接到我們的主幹網，我們有許多新的運算合作夥伴。該平台已準備好出售。所以我們對此非常樂觀。我認為我們正在以非常負責任的方式進行建造。正如我所說，目前我們的資本支出對於這項業務來說相對溫和。所以我認為我們的狀態非常好。

And with that, that will end today's call. I want to thank everyone for joining, and have a great evening.

今天的通話就到此結束。我要感謝大家的加入，祝福大家有個愉快的夜晚。

Thank you.

謝謝。

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.

會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演示，您現在可以斷開連接了。