This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Blackstone (NYSE:BX) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced a joint venture to create a new U.S.-based company offering Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) as a compute-as-a-service platform. Blackstone is making an initial equity commitment of $5 billion from its managed funds, with the venture targeting its first 500 megawatts of capacity online by 2027. Blackstone rose 0.75% in premarket and Alphabet gained 0.61%.
The new company adds a second path for customers to access TPUs, which are Google’s custom AI chips optimized for training and inference. Google will supply the chips alongside software and services. Blackstone brings its position as the world’s largest data center provider and its energy infrastructure expertise. Benjamin Treynor Sloss has been named CEO of the new company.
Jon Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer of Blackstone, called it “a generational opportunity to invest capital at scale building AI infrastructure.” Google’s TPU platform has been in production for more than a decade, powering Gemini and other AI products. Both companies said the venture is designed to scale significantly beyond the initial 500 MW commitment as demand for accelerated computing grows.
