Blackstone enters the AI boom

Private equity giant Blackstone is positioning itself at the center of the AI boom through various strategies, from massive loans to data centers to investments in frontier AI models and applications.

Blackstone N1 launches in San Francisco

Earlier this year, Blackstone launched Blackstone N1, a San Francisco-based central hub for its AI initiatives. The group is led by Jas Khaira, who relocated from New York to lead the effort.

Why AI needs Blackstone's capital

Unlike earlier tech cycles such as mobile or SaaS, the transition to AI requires staggering amounts of investment. Blackstone, with one point three trillion dollars in assets under management, can play a critical role.

Blackstone's compute advantage

Khaira emphasized that Blackstone sets itself apart from traditional venture capitalists through its focus on compute financing and ability to offer flexible capital structures ranging from debt to equity.

“We're the largest owner of compute outside of the hyperscalers today, whether it's investments in neo clouds, investments in data centers, and being able to use that compute strategically to support companies.”

Major compute deals

Blackstone N1 backed Crux AI, a neocloud launched with Google, committing five billion dollars as an investor. It also backed Etched, a four-year-old chip startup whose rapid development caught investor attention.

The CoreWeave breakthrough

Blackstone pioneered a financing structure allowing it to lend massive sums to venture-backed neoclouds by analyzing committed customer contracts and using GPUs pledged as collateral. CoreWeave was the first deal in twenty twenty-three.

CoreWeave's two point three billion loan

Despite having only thirty million dollars of revenue and minimal profitability, CoreWeave approached Blackstone for a two point three billion dollar loan. CoreWeave was borrowing against its large collection of Nvidia GPUs.

Customer creditworthiness matters

Blackstone grew more comfortable with the CoreWeave loan because it had contracts with blue-chip customers like Microsoft. The financing model quickly became how Blackstone and other credit institutions provided billions in follow-on debt.

“One of the primary things that we're looking to is the nature of the customer. And if the customer is an investment-grade customer, let's say it's Microsoft or let's say it's Meta, the risk gets priced relative to that customer.”

Firmus and rising debt concerns

Blackstone co-led a ten billion dollar credit facility for Australian GPU provider Firmus earlier this year. But CoreWeave's debt has since ballooned to about fifty billion dollars, raising red flags about neocloud debt burdens.

Why debt concerns are rising

Interest rates ticked up in September and hotter-than-expected inflation signals borrowing costs may keep climbing. Lenders are charging higher premiums on top of already higher base interest rates to finance the AI buildout.

“We're also seeing higher credit spreads. The cost of capital to price in debt for a Meta or a Microsoft has widened out.”

Market pressure on neoclouds

Concerns about rising debt costs have spilled into the stock market.CoreWeave shares dropped over twenty percent in recent days.

Khaira dismisses systemic risk

Despite pressures on infrastructure providers, Khaira downplayed worries that massive AI infrastructure debt could lead to a widespread credit crisis.

“This doesn't feel like something where you've got two thousand eight banks that are shaky credits.”