Tech experts respond to Google-Blackstone AI partnership

Google and Blackstone are kickstarting a fresh AI company to vie with cloud services like CoreWeave and Nebius.

Blackstone, the leading asset management company, will initially channel $5 billion into the new American-based venture, as announced on Monday.

Their plan is to deliver data centre capacity, operational capabilities, and Google Cloud's Tensor Processing Units as a service.

Thomas Kurian, who leads Google Cloud, mentioned in the release that the new firm provides entities with more options to access computing resources.

"Our collaboration with Blackstone addresses the burgeoning need for TPUs, which are particularly tailored for proficiency and capability in the AI domain," Kurian stated.

Here is how technology experts and investors have responded to the announcement:

Rittenhouse Research

In a post on X, Rittenhouse Research, which provides market insights and investment advice, observed that most of the major neocloud suppliers — like CoreWeave, Nebius, Crusoe, and Lambda — predominantly favour Nvidia hardware, creating opportunities for Google-supported TPU alternatives.

The company mentioned that although this decision may heighten competition for these firms, it ultimately reinforces the neocloud framework that those entities pioneered.

Gilles Drieu, ex-director of engineering at Google

Gilles Drieu, the CTO of ADT and a past engineering head at Google, commented that Google and Blackstone's novel TPU-based AI cloud signifies significant transformations in the AI infrastructure landscape.

In a post on X, he highlighted that hyperscalers are beginning to monetize their unique chips beyond their internal cloud environments. Concurrently, private investment is progressively backing extensive AI infrastructure endeavours once directly bankrolled by major tech firms.

Drieu further stated that the AI ecosystem is increasingly becoming vertically harmonised, encompassing chips, inference, and power infrastructure.

"Computing resources are evolving into a crucial supply chain," he expressed on X.

"'Welcome to Hell' aptly describes the situation," penned Kotik, an equities portfolio manager at Rockefeller Global.

"With Google and Blackstone uniting, every other AI firm has been warned," Kotik asserted on X. "The dominant players are swiftly consolidating power, and smaller companies are being squeezed out."