What happened
Blackstone President Jon Gray has built a $200 billion data-center empire, is building a cloud venture with Google, and has invested in labs like OpenAI while lending against Broadcom and Nvidia chips.
Why it matters
Blackstone is pushing into AI across every corner it can — property, power plants, cooling equipment, and even its own deal-review model — even as a backlash against power-hungry data centers has derailed some projects.
WHO IT HITSThe move lands on data-center operators, AI lab founders raising capital, and the firm's own investment teams, who now see AI weigh in on proposed deals.
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Gray, long seen as the lead candidate to replace CEO Steve Schwarzman, has placed AI at the center of Blackstone's strategy. He told investors that the technology represents a shift as profound as the move from wood, horses and candles to steel, railroads and electricity, calling it "the single most important thing" underway at the firm. His address to chief investment officers, complete with an AI rendering of a 19th-century version of himself, underscored that theme. The push extends from data centers and chips to office leasing to Anthropic and a data-center real estate investment trust.
The buildup has not been smooth. Earlier this year, Blackstone folded its growth business into a division devoted solely to AI after the previous unit had uneven results. Its real estate business got two new leaders after Nadeem Meghji's surprise exit. And as a major data-center landlord, the firm now sits in sensitive political territory, with a growing backlash against power-hungry data centers already derailing some projects.
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