Alternative asset manager Blackstone is investing $5 billion into a joint venture with Google, aiming to create a new U.S.-based company focused on data centers. The company’s goal will be to offer efficient capacity, operations and networking capabilities, as well as access to Google Cloud’s tensor processing units, or TPUs, as a compute-as-a-service offering.
These TPU chips are purpose-built for training and inference of advanced AI models, and they power Gemini and Google’s other AI-driven offerings. In addition to TPUs, Google will equip the joint venture with other hardware and software services to help it meet increased demand for accelerated computing.
With Blackstone’s equity commitment, the new company is expected to bring the first 500 megawatts of capacity online in 2027 and continue scaling significantly thereafter. The joint venture will be headed by Google executive Benjamin Treynor Sloss, who will serve as its CEO.
“We see a generational opportunity to invest capital at scale building AI infrastructure. This new company has enormous potential as it helps to meet the unprecedented demand for compute,” Jon Gray, Blackstone’s president and COO, said in a statement. “We are incredibly proud to partner with Google — bringing together their world-class TPUs and AI capabilities with Blackstone’s exceptional strength in energy and digital infrastructure.”
