AI defence and drones startup Helsing has struck a deal with French OpenAI challenger Mistral to develop large language models (LLMs) for defence.
The tie-up, announced during the Paris Global AI Summit taking place in the French capital this week, will focus on developing vision-language-action models, which “will enable defence platforms to understand their environment, easily communicate with operators, and make faster, more reliable decisions in complex scenarios,” according to Helsing’s statement.
“In the future, defence systems will work with artificial intelligence and support people. Robots and AI will change defence — they will make operations more efficient, reduce risks and help make faster decisions in difficult situations," Antoine Bordes, vice president of artificial intelligence at Helsing, said in a statement.
Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch said the partnership would help “Europe become a leader in artificial intelligence.”
The move comes shortly after Helsing announced a big pivot into producing autonomous attack drones; previously the startup had only produced software for the battlefield.
But it comes at a time when worries about the US and China’s power are growing — particularly in areas like AI, with both countries developing competitive AI models, OpenAI and DeepSeek. The release of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s model earlier this year — which is said to be cheaper and comparable to ChatGPT — sparked lots of questions about how Mistral will compete. Meanwhile many defence insiders believe that the second Trump administration may be less supportive of Europe and be more protectionist.
“Europe needs to demonstrate its strength as a global player, and a leading role in AI is crucial for this,” Helsing co-founder Gundbert Scherf said.
The pair are among the best-funded startups in Europe: Helsing most recently raised €450m at a €4.95bn valuation last summer; Mistral, meanwhile, secured a whopping €5.8bn valuation with its €600m round last June.
