Blackstone announced on May 19 a new joint venture with Google to build a US-based TPU cloud provider, with an initial $5 billion equity commitment from Blackstone funds. The new company will finance, build and operate data centers that sell access to Google's Tensor Processing Units as a managed compute service, opening a second channel to TPU capacity outside Google Cloud. Benjamin Treynor Sloss, a 20-plus-year Google infrastructure veteran, will serve as CEO of the venture.
The first 500 megawatts of capacity are targeted to come online in 2027, with plans to scale significantly beyond the initial deployment. Google supplies the TPU hardware, software and services while Blackstone contributes capital and real-estate development through its BXN1 platform. "We see a generational opportunity to invest capital at scale building AI infrastructure," Blackstone President Jon Gray said in the announcement.
The deal positions Google to chip away at Nvidia's dominance of AI compute by widening enterprise access to TPUs, and gives Blackstone a flagship asset in the AI data-center buildout race against KKR, Brookfield and Stargate. Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said the partnership will accelerate AI transformation and "provide more options for organizations to access accelerated compute capability."