Google, Blackstone to Form AI Cloud Venture With $5 Billion Investment

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Google and Blackstone on Monday said they will form a US-based artificial intelligence cloud venture backed by an initial $5 billion equity investment, expanding their push into computing infrastructure as demand for AI workloads grows.

Blackstone said the investment will help bring 500 megawatts of data center capacity online in 2027, with plans to scale the venture over time. The company said the broader plan could involve as much as $25 billion including debt financing.

The venture will offer data center capacity, operations, networking and Google Cloud’s Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, through a compute-as-a-service model. 

Google will supply the hardware, software and services for the new company.

The new business will give customers another way to access cloud TPUs outside Google Cloud, the companies said.

TPUs are Google’s custom chips for artificial intelligence workloads and are central to its push to compete for cloud customers seeking large-scale AI computing capacity.

Benjamin Treynor Sloss, a Google executive with more than two decades of experience building and operating the company’s global infrastructure and operations, has been named chief executive officer of the venture.

Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer of Google Cloud, said the venture would help meet “growing demand for TPUs” and provide organizations with more options to access accelerated computing.

The deal comes as the AI boom drives a wave of investment into data centers, power generation, transmission networks and other infrastructure needed to support large-scale computing. 

Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, has been expanding its exposure to AI-linked infrastructure, including data centers and energy assets.

Blackstone President and Chief Operating Officer Jon Gray said the company sees a “generational opportunity” to invest in AI infrastructure, adding that the venture combines Google’s AI capabilities with Blackstone’s energy and digital infrastructure platform.