Blackstone on Monday announced a joint venture with Google to create a new US-based company that will offer efficient data centre capacity, operations, networking, and Google Cloud's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) as a compute-as-a-service offering.
Google's TPUs are custom chips purpose-built for AI, and optimized for training and inference of advanced AI models. The company will give customers another option to access cloud TPUs in addition to using them through Google Cloud.
The company expects to bring the first 500 MW of capacity online in 2027, with plans to scale significantly over time. Blackstone has named Benjamin Treynor Sloss, a Google executive, to lead the new company as chief executive.
Blackstone is making an initial commitment of $5 billion in equity capital from funds managed by Blackstone. Google will supply hardware, including TPUs, as well as software and services to the new company.
Thomas Kurian, chief executive of Google Cloud, said: "This joint venture with Blackstone helps meet growing demand for TPUs, which are optimized specifically for efficiency and performance in the AI era."
