On Monday, Microsoft announced a new alliance with Mistral AI, a French start-up often billed as Europe’s counterpart to OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. This partnership arrangements comes as Microsoft is aiming to broaden its influence in the rapidly developing field of artificial intelligence.
As part of its investment, Microsoft committed to support the 10-month-old company, valued at 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion), to uncover “new commercial opportunities” and extend its reach to markets worldwide. However, the specifics of the financial commitment remained undisclosed.
The terms of the partnership stipulate that Mistral’s large language models (LLM) – the underlying technology for generative AI products – will be accessible on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform. Consequently, Mistral will become the second company to host its LLM on the platform, following OpenAI.
Moreover, the alliance will enhance Mistral’s ability to reach new customers, especially as it introduces its multilingual conversational assistant called “Le Chat,” or “the cat,” which functions in a similar manner to ChatGPT.
Microsoft’s President, Brad Smith, on Monday described the partnership with Mistral AI as a significant indication of the company’s support for European technology. Speaking at the Mobile World Congress tech conference in Barcelona, Spain, Smith highlighted the importance of the long-term collaboration with Mistral AI, enabling the French start-up to train and deploy its next-generation AI models on Microsoft’s AI data centres immediately.
The deal follows enhanced scrutiny on Microsoft from EU antitrust regulators regarding its alleged $13 billion investment in San Francisco-based OpenAI. When posed with a question on whether this investment aimed to mitigate competition concerns, Smith reassured that Microsoft is set on having diverse product offerings. Emphasising that the initiative goes beyond American-centricity, Smith asserted that it would serve as a catalyst for technological innovation and growth in Europe.
Moreover, this investment in Mistral AI will also channel funds dedicated to research and development, involving AI models for public sector services in Europe. Smith maintained that a broad range of offerings is a necessity that Europe wants, needs, and deserves.
Additionally, on the same day, the Spanish telecommunication titan Telefónica revealed that they had landed a deal to integrate Microsoft’s Azure AI Studio into their digital ecosystem, Kernel. This incorporation will enable staff to interpret data using generative AI language models.
The announcement comes at a time when other technology behemoths, such as Google and Amazon, are intensifying their investments in AI. This surge in interest is in response to the escalating excitement surrounding this emerging technology, reflected by global markets reaching record highs last week, triggered by robust results from AI chipmaker Nvidia.
