Google and Blackstone Launch $25B AI Venture

Google and Blackstone are launching a joint venture offering a compute-as-a-service platform for AI workloads. Blackstone is contributing $5 billion in equity for a majority stake, with the deal valued at $25 billion including leverage. The venture will be led by longtime Google executive Benjamin Treynor Sloss. The partnership will use Google's custom TPU AI chips, currently exclusive to Google Cloud, to power its infrastructure. Starting with 500 megawatts of computing capacity, the venture plans significant expansion. Blackstone brings over $150 billion in existing data center assets to the collaboration.