Blackstone Forms $5 Billion Joint Venture With Google for AI Data Center Platform
NEW YORK — May 18, 2026 — Blackstone (NYSE: BX) announced a joint venture with Google to establish a new U.S.-based company that will offer data center capacity, operations, networking, and Google Cloud's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) as a compute-as-a-service offering, the firms said in a joint press release.
Blackstone is making an initial commitment of $5 billion in equity capital from funds it manages. The new company expects to bring the first 500 MW of capacity online in 2027, with plans to scale significantly over time. Google will supply hardware, including TPUs, as well as software and services to the venture.
Structure of the Blackstone–Google Joint Venture
Under the terms of the partnership, the new company will give customers an additional option to access cloud TPUs beyond using them directly through Google Cloud. Google's TPUs are custom chips purpose-built for AI, optimized for training and inference of advanced AI models. According to the announcement, TPUs have been developed and deployed in production for more than a decade and power workloads for AI labs, capital market firms, and companies running high-performance computing applications. They also power Google's Gemini AI products.
Blackstone has named Benjamin Treynor Sloss, a Google executive with over two decades of experience building and operating Google's global infrastructure, to lead the new company as CEO.
No specific sites, addresses, or markets were disclosed in the announcement.
Executive Commentary
Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone, said in the announcement: "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."
Jas Khaira, Head of Blackstone N1 (BXN1), added: "Capital alone doesn't build category-defining platforms — the right partner, the right structure, and the conviction to underwrite singular opportunities do. Google's TPUs, a decade in the making and foundational to the AI economy, are exactly the kind of platform BXN1 was built to back."
Thomas Kurian, CEO 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. Together, we're accelerating AI transformation and providing more options for organizations to access accelerated compute capability."
Blackstone's Position in Digital Infrastructure
Blackstone describes itself as the world's largest alternative asset manager, with over $1.3 trillion in assets under management, and the largest global provider of data centers. The firm's investment strategies span real estate, private equity, credit, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, secondaries, and hedge funds.
Google's TPU Strategy and Capital Considerations
The joint venture is intended to give customers more choice and flexibility for running AI workloads on TPUs, the companies said. The new platform is structured so that Blackstone leads capital and infrastructure operations while Google supplies hardware, software, and services, including TPUs.
No additional financial terms, ownership splits, lease structures, or capex-per-megawatt guidance were disclosed in the announcement.
Related Articles
Corebridge Real Estate Investors, ACD's Jarrett Armstrong Form Programmatic JV With $36M Raleigh Retail Acquisition
Oxford Properties Acquires One Marina Park Drive From Clarion Partners for $435M in Boston Seaport
