French company Mistral, now backed by Microsoft, launches conversational AI – 02/27/2024 at 08:55

French company Mistral AI, one of the two champions of AI in Europe, made a big splash Monday by unveiling its partnership with Microsoft and its conversational AI, less than a year after its creation.

Along with its new Mistral Large Language model, the third unveiled by the company, Mistral announced the existence of “Chat”, a nod to American Open AI’s predecessor ChatGPT.

The French conglomerate, valued at around $2 billion according to financial sources, is outperforming GPT-4. The difference is that it currently offers conversational AI dedicated to businesses, not the general public.

Mistral’s larger model, Azure AI, is available from Monday to customers of the Microsoft platform, with which Mistral is announcing a partnership without disclosing terms.

“This is an important milestone for us, as the unmatched performance of this multilingual model continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with state-of-the-art artificial intelligence,” Mistral AI co-founder Arthur Mensch said in a press release.

Microsoft, for its part, welcomed the partnership with the start-up, describing it as “groundbreaking and innovative”. This is based on a “common commitment to provide secure and reliable AI systems and products,” the American giant said.

According to the Financial Times, Microsoft has a small investment in Mistral.

– Global Business –

Created in April 2023, Mistral AI, whose three French founders come from the ranks of Meta (Facebook’s parent company) and Google, has always wanted to offer an alternative to the models of big American “tech” companies.

“We follow a clear ambition: to create a European champion with a global business in artificial intelligence,” one of its co-founders, Arthur Mensch, declared in a press release in December.

The launch of ChatGPT, followed by the release of other models across the Atlantic, started a race against time on the European side.

“There is a very strong cultural dependence on the United States” with respect to AI, Arthur Manns pointed out in October. Unlike its American counterparts, Mistral AI, for example, focuses on developing “open source” models that can be used by anyone.

The new model unveiled on Monday is also available in five languages ​​(French, English, German, Spanish and Italian).

– “Champion” France –

Desire for independence spurred by the political arena: When Mistral AI successfully raised 105 million euros in June 2023, Emmanuel Macron declared his desire to see France become a “champion” in the field. .

In mid-January, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen encouraged the European Union to “redouble its efforts” so as not to be left behind.

France has especially positioned itself in the race of AI in Europe: in addition to the encouragement given by the President of the Republic for the launch of Mistral AI, the Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire recently emphasized his desire to see the emergence. An AI model that is specific to France (…)” and creates jobs.

In mid-February, a research “hub” dedicated to AI was inaugurated by Google in Paris, and the country will host the next in-person edition of the Summit on AI Security.

But some European companies can claim the title of serious competitors for ChatGPT and others Gemini (Google) and Copilot (Microsoft): besides Mistral AI, only German Aleph Alpha has such ambitions.

And the desire for European sovereignty is threatened by the enormous sums invested in the United States. In November, and despite having raised 500 million euros in funding, Eleph Alpha’s CEO was worried his company was “in existential danger” after learning that an additional $13 billion had been injected into OpenAI.