Blackstone and Google have entered into a joint venture (JV) to establish a US-based firm offering data centre capacity, operations, networking, and Google Cloud’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) as a compute-as-a-service product.
The new company will help customers to access cloud TPUs independently of Google Cloud. Blackstone will provide an initial $5bn equity commitment through its managed funds.
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The business plans to introduce the first 500MW of capacity by 2027, with further expansion anticipated.
Google will contribute hardware, including TPUs, along with software and related services, drawing on its technical and industry expertise to address the increasing demand for accelerated computing.
Benjamin Treynor Sloss, a senior Google executive with over 20 years’ experience in the company’s infrastructure and operations, will serve as the CEO of the new venture.
The new company aims to offer expanded options and flexibility for customers running AI workloads on TPUs.
Google’s TPUs are specialised chips designed for AI tasks, particularly large-scale training and inference, and have been used for more than ten years in multiple industries.
The chips currently support both internal Google products, such as Gemini, and services used by external clients in AI research, financial markets, and high-performance computing.
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said: “This joint venture with Blackstone helps meet growing demand for TPUs, which are optimised specifically for efficiency and performance in the AI era. Together, we’re accelerating AI transformation and providing more options for organisations to access accelerated compute capability.”
Blackstone, which manages over $1.3tn in assets and is said to be the largest global supplier of data centres, has established this collaboration to address growing demand for compute resources.
Blackstone president and chief operating officer Jon Gray said: “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.
“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.”
