Blackstone’s Jas Khaira to talk AI company-building at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

Blackstone is best known for owning large amounts of real estate. Lately, it has been putting serious money into the infrastructure behind artificial intelligence.

Jas Khaira, the executive steering that effort, is set to appear on the Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. His topic is building the next generation of AI companies.

Who is speaking, and where

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 runs from October 13-15 at Moscone West in San Francisco. This year’s theme centers on building enduring companies in the AI era.

His title explains why TechCrunch booked him. In April 2026, Khaira was named Global Head of Blackstone N1 and Blackstone Growth. As part of the move, he relocated from New York to San Francisco.

For anyone weighing a ticket, TechCrunch is pitching a promotion: buy one pass and get 50% off a second.

What Blackstone N1 actually is

Blackstone N1, abbreviated BXN1, launched in April 2026. Its job is to pull the firm’s AI and high-growth tech investing under one roof.

BXN1 consolidates Blackstone’s growth, hybrid and perpetual private equity strategies that target the AI ecosystem. It also absorbed the existing Blackstone Growth platform.

The numbers behind that bet are large. Blackstone has more than $150 billion deployed in AI-related data center assets globally. Those holdings include data centers and the energy resources needed to run them.

On top of that, the firm has a $160 billion investment pipeline. That figure represents deals in the works rather than money already spent.

Blackstone also holds stakes in OpenAI and Anthropic, two of the most closely watched developers of large AI models. That gives the firm exposure to both the physical infrastructure and the companies building the models that run on it.

The Q2 scorecard

In Q2 2026, nine of the firm’s top ten performing investments were in the AI sector.

That result helps explain the April reorganization. When most of your best performers share a theme, building a dedicated unit around that theme looks less like a gamble and more like following the evidence.

Why founders and investors should pay attention

Khaira’s appearance at Disrupt matters for a few reasons beyond a single panel.

First, it signals that capital from large private equity firms is increasingly flowing toward earlier-stage and growth-stage AI companies. Through BXN1, Blackstone is positioned to back operating businesses as well as the infrastructure they depend on.

Second, with over $150 billion already deployed and a $160 billion pipeline, Blackstone’s moves can shape how other institutional investors view the AI trade.

There are risks worth watching too. A portfolio where nine of the top ten performers sit in one sector is highly concentrated. Energy is another pressure point. AI data centers need enormous amounts of power, which is why Blackstone’s holdings include energy resources alongside the buildings themselves.

Perpetual private equity strategies, one of the pieces folded into BXN1, are designed to hold assets for extended periods instead of flipping them on a fixed fund timeline. That structure suits a bet on infrastructure that may take years to fully pay off.