私人股权巨头布莱克斯通(Blackstone)将自己置于AI繁荣的中心
它通过各种战略进行核查，从向数据中心提供大规模贷款到投资前沿AI模型和应用。
今年早些时候，发布 Blackstone N1(BXN1)公司是一家位于旧金山的中央枢纽，用于其AI倡议。 该小组由Khaira领导，他从纽约迁至AI中心。
与早期的技术周期如移动或SaaS不同，移动或SaaS允许公司以中等资本达到相当规模，向AI的过渡需要惊人的投资量。 这种对资本的需求正是黑石公司拥有1.3万亿美元资产在管理之下，能够在这一技术转变中发挥关键作用的原因。
海拉强调，黑石公司通过注重计算融资和提供从债务到股本等灵活资本结构的能力，将自己与传统风险资本家区分开来。 它一直在大力投资。
“我们是当今超规模公司之外最大的计算拥有者，无论是新云投资、数据中心投资
例如，BXN1在几个与计算有关的交易中发挥了关键作用，其中包括Crux AI，一个与Google合作的新云发布，将它的定制TPU商业化，黑石公司作为投资人为此承诺了50亿美元。 它还支持了4年的Etched，这是一个芯片启动，其快速发展引起了投资者的注意。 Neoclouds是租赁AI GPU基础设施的云提供商。
Blackstone开创了一个融资结构，通过分析承诺的客户合同和使用作为抵押的GPU，使其能够向风险支持的云新云提供大量贷款。
Blackstone在2023年首次与CoreWeave达成这样的交易，尽管当时只有“3 000万收入和最低利润”，据Khaira说，CoreWeave向Blackstone寻求23亿美元的贷款。
CoreWeave以其大量收集的Nvidia GPU的相当价值借款，Nvidia也是投资人。 由于CoreWeave与像Microsoft那样的蓝芯客户有合约，黑石公司也因贷款而变得更加舒适。
这笔交易很快成为黑石公司和其他信贷机构向CoreWeave和竞争对手新云公司提供数十亿后续债务的融资模式。
“我们期望的主要事情之一是顾客的性质。 如果客户是投资级的客户(比如说Microsoft或者说Meta)
Blackstone凭借在CoreWeave上的成功，打击了其他新云融资交易，包括在今年早些时候与Coatue共同领导澳大利亚GPU供应商Firmus的100亿美元信贷机制。
海拉承认，近几周来，这些公司和其他新云运营商积累的大量债务负担开始高举红旗。 仅Coreweave的债务就升至500亿美元，他们过去曾利用这种手段获得廉价债务。”
Khaira 称，在信贷方面，市场紧张来自多种因素。 9月利率上升，借贷费用可能不断攀升的通货膨胀信号比预期的要热。 AI的基础设施债务也无济于事。
Khaira 称解释说，贷款人除了已经较高的基本利率外，还要收取更高的溢价，他补充说，“Meta或Microsoft的债务资本价格成本已经扩大，”他还指出，即使是拥有大量资产负债表和扎实收益的技术巨头也正在支付更多的借款。
对债务成本上升的关切已蔓延到股票市场。 CoreWeave的股权在最近几天里下降了20%以上，而Firmerus则以约300亿美元的目标估值在澳大利亚证券交易上将其计划的IPO报废。
“当然，在那次估值时市场并不存在，因此我认为这一交易没有完成，”Khaira 称关于Firmus被取消上市。
他的称表示：「市场在思考新云的正确价格
尽管一些基础设施供应商受到这些压力，AI公司却根本无法获得足够的计算来为其模型提供动力。 他们的胃口继续推动数据中心的建设。
卡伊拉淡化了末日末日者的担忧，即AI基础设施债务的大量积累可能导致广泛的信用危机，或者更糟的是，经济崩溃。 他表示，“这并不像2008年银行的信贷不稳定
相反，他指出，由于绝大多数数据中心是为超规模公司建造的，因此债务融资最终得到了“世界上最有信誉的公司”的支持。
Blackstone除了资助数据中心之外，还帮助公司通过今年与Anthropic和Hellman & Friedman一起组建的名为“Ode with Anthropic”的15亿美元的合资企业采用AI。 Ode提供远期部署的工程师帮助公司采用AI并融入其业务，从Blackstone的280个组合公司开始。
当被问到黑石公司是否从AI那里得到实实在在的收益时，海拉承认了“肯定有ROI，但它是不均衡的。” 他将技术采纳描述为可以以“锯齿型模式”移动的东西，怀疑者认为，在采纳之前，它可能看起来是计算过多。
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Private equity giant Blackstone is putting itself at the center of the AI boom, firm veteran Jas Khaira discussed last week on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt.
It is writing checks via various strategies, ranging from offering massive loans to data centers to investing in frontier AI models and applications.
Earlier this year, the firm launched Blackstone N1 (BXN1), a San Francisco-based central hub for its AI initiatives. The group is led by Khaira, who relocated from New York to be at the epicenter of AI.
Unlike earlier tech cycles such as mobile or SaaS, which allowed companies to reach significant scale with moderate capital, the transition to AI requires staggering amounts of investment. That need for capital is precisely why Blackstone, with its $1.3 trillion in assets under management, could play such a critical role in this tech shift.
Khaira emphasized that Blackstone sets itself apart from traditional venture capitalists through its focus on compute financing and its ability to offer flexible capital structures, ranging from debt to equity. And it has been investing aggressively.
“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,” Khaira said.
For instance, BXN1 played a key role in several compute-related deals, among them Crux AI, a neocloud launched in partnership with Google to commercialize its custom TPUs, to which Blackstone committed $5 billion as an investor. It also backed four-year-old Etched, a chip startup whose rapid development has caught investor attention. Neoclouds are cloud providers that rent out AI GPU infrastructure.
Blackstone pioneered a financing structure that allowed it to lend massive sums to venture-backed cloud neoclouds by analyzing both committed customer contracts and using GPUs pledged as collateral.
Blackstone’s first such deal came in 2023 with CoreWeave, shortly after that neocloud saw demand explode following the launch of ChatGPT. Despite having only “30 million of revenue and minimal profitability” at that time, according to Khaira, CoreWeave approached Blackstone for a $2.3 billion loan.
CoreWeave was borrowing against the considerable value of its large collection of Nvidia GPUs, with Nvidia also an investor. Blackstone also grew more comfortable with the loan because CoreWeave had contracts with blue-chip customers like Microsoft.
That transaction quickly became the financing model for how Blackstone and other credit institutions provided billions in follow-on debt to CoreWeave and rival neoclouds.
“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,” Khaira said.
Building on its success with CoreWeave, Blackstone struck other neocloud financing deals, including co-leading alongside Coatue a $10 billion credit facility for Australian GPU provider Firmus earlier this year.
Khaira acknowledged that in recent weeks, the large debt burdens accumulated by these companies and other neocloud operators have begun to raise red flags. Coreweave’s debt alone has since ballooned to about $50 billion, causing Altimeter Capital founder Brad Gerstner to note in a recent CNBC interview, “The collateral that CoreWeave is putting up which is really only GPUs is not good enough anymore. They used that in the past to get cheap debt.”
Khaira said that on the credit side, the market jitters stem from a combination of factors. Interest rates ticked up in September, and hotter-than-expected inflation signals that borrowing costs may keep climbing. The flood of AI infrastructure debt offerings isn’t helping either.
“We’re also seeing higher credit spreads,” Khaira said, explaining that lenders are charging higher premiums on top of already higher base interest rates to finance the AI buildout. “The cost of capital to price in debt for a Meta or a Microsoft has widened out,” he added, pointing out that even tech giants with massive balance sheets and solid earnings are paying more to borrow.
Concerns about the rising cost of debt have spilled into the stock market. Shares of CoreWeave dropped over 20% in recent days, while Firmus scrapped its planned IPO on the Australian Securities Exchange at a target valuation of roughly $30 billion.
“Ultimately, the market wasn’t there at that valuation, and so I think as a result, that deal didn’t get done,” Khaira said about Firmus’ cancelled listing.
“The market is thinking what is the right price for neoclouds, what is the right price for these businesses in this moment when interest rates are moving up,” he said.
Despite those pressures on some infrastructure providers, AI companies simply can’t get enough compute to power their models. Their appetite continues to drive data center buildout.
Khaira downplayed worries of doom-mongers that the massive accumulation of AI infrastructure debt could lead to a widespread credit crisis, or worse, crash the economy altogether. “This doesn’t feel like something where you’ve got 2008 banks that are shaky credits,” he said.
Instead, he pointed out that because the vast majority of data centers are built for hyperscalers, the debt financing them is ultimately backed “by the most creditworthy companies in the world.”
Beyond funding data centers, Blackstone is helping companies adopt AI through a $1.5 billion joint venture called “Ode with Anthropic,” formed alongside Anthropic and Hellman & Friedman this year. Ode supplies forward-deployed engineers to help companies adopt AI and integrate it into their operations, starting with Blackstone’s 280 portfolio companies.
When asked if Blackstone-owned companies are seeing tangible gains from AI, Khaira conceded that “there is definitely ROI, but it is uneven.” He described technology adoption as something that could move in a “sawtooth-type pattern,” which, to skeptics, can look like an oversupply of compute before adoption catches up.
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