Banks provide $22 billion chip loan to Blackstone, Alphabet AI cloud venture, source says

By Harshita Mary Varghese and Arasu Kannagi Basil

Sept 16 (Reuters) - A group of 10 banks is providing a $22 billion chip loan to support Blackstone and Alphabet's new cloud venture Crux AI, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

The top banks include Goldman Sachs Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, Barclays, BNP Paribas SA and Bank of Nova Scotia, the source said, declining to be named as the discussions were still private.

The deal comes as demand for computing power drives investment in data centers, specialized chips and electricity, requiring tech companies to secure billions of dollars to build out AI infrastructure.

Google and Blackstone announced the venture in May, saying they would form a cloud business to meet the growing demand for AI computing services. The venture plans to bring its first 500 megawatts of capacity online in 2027.

Crux AI, which formally launched last week, has secured an initial $5 billion equity investment from Blackstone, while Google will provide its custom Tensor Processing Units, software and services.

The AI infrastructure company said the platform is designed for AI labs, technology companies, enterprises and governments that require dedicated computing capacity and infrastructure tailored to their needs.

The debt will be used to purchase Google TPUs. It will be backed by the value of those chips and Crux AI's customer contracts, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the news.

The banking group is in the process of bringing in more lenders to share the risk via syndication, according to the report, which also said the debt could be replaced later with long-term financing from institutional investors in the investment-grade bond market.

BNP, Barclays and SMBC declined to comment, while Blackstone, Alphabet, Goldman Sachs and Bank of Nova Scotia did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese and Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)