Bank Consortium Lines Up $22 Billion Loan for Blackstone-Alphabet Cloud Venture's AI Chip Purchases

A consortium of 10 banks is preparing a $22 billion chip-backed loan to support Crux AI, a cloud computing venture recently established by Blackstone and Alphabet, according to people familiar with the matter.

The funds will be used to purchase Google's in-house tensor processing units (TPUs), with the chips and Crux AI's customer contracts serving as collateral. Participating banks include Goldman Sachs, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Barclays, BNP Paribas and Scotiabank. The lead banks are syndicating the loan to bring in additional lenders to spread risk.