According to the Wall Street Journal on May 18, the two companies have agreed to create the AI cloud firm in the United States, although the name has not yet been disclosed. Blackstone will invest $5 billion in equity for this venture.
The new company will provide cloud computing services based on Google's TPU. Benjamin Trainer Sloss, a long-time Google executive, will serve as the CEO of the new company.
Google and Blackstone announced plans for the company to operate with a computing capacity of 500 megawatts (MW) by 2027, which is comparable to the power demand of a medium-sized city. The Wall Street Journal reported that Blackstone is expected to support investments totaling around $25 billion, including debt financing.
This joint venture is seen as Google's most significant attempt to monetize its AI chips in the external market. Industry observers have been watching closely to see whether Google would use its TPU primarily for internal services or expand into the external cloud market. Recently, Google secured a major contract to provide approximately 1 million TPUs to Anthropic and has also entered into agreements with Meta Platforms.
Competitors include Nvidia and CoreWeave. Currently, major AI companies rely on Nvidia chip-based cloud infrastructure to train and run advanced AI models. CoreWeave has rapidly grown by capitalizing on AI computing demand with Nvidia chips.
Google's strategy aims to reduce its dependence on Nvidia by creating alternatives with its own chips. Last month, Google unveiled a new processor for AI inference, which is the computation involved in executing already trained AI models in real-world applications. As businesses increasingly adopt AI, the demand for inference is rising.
Blackstone is accelerating its investments in AI infrastructure. The firm has pursued acquisitions of data center operators QTS Realty Trust and AirTrunk, and has invested in CoreWeave, Anthropic, and OpenAI. Stephen Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO of Blackstone, recently stated that the company holds over $150 billion in data center assets, including facilities under construction.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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