Blackstone, the largest private owner of data centers, announced a significant investment of $5 billion in equity capital to establish a new artificial intelligence infrastructure company in partnership with Google.
This venture will utilize Google's tensor processing units (TPUs), specialized chips designed for AI computations, with plans to bring 500 megawatts of compute capacity online by 2027 and expand further. Jon Gray, Blackstone's President and COO, emphasized the venture's potential to meet the rising demand for computing resources.
The company will be led by Benjamin Treynor Sloss, formerly Google's chief programs officer. Although Blackstone is expected to hold a majority stake, specific ownership details were not disclosed. The joint venture has already pinpointed potential data center locations, some of which are under construction.
This move is part of Blackstone's broader strategy to invest in the AI ecosystem, following a similar venture with Anthropic earlier this month. The partnership also intensifies the competition between Google and Nvidia in the AI hardware market, as Google aims to reduce its reliance on Nvidia's GPUs by promoting its TPUs, which are tailored for specific AI applications.
Analysts suggest that Alphabet, Google's parent company, is well-positioned in the AI landscape due to its in-house development capabilities and robust cloud services