French AI model maker Mistral is positioning itself as a partner of choice as concerns grow in Europe following industry giant Anthropic’s recent suspension of access to some of its best-performing models.
Last week Anthropic was ordered by the US government to cut access to two of its models for foreign nationals, raising alarm bells on this side of the Atlantic — and Mistral is keen to fill the gap and establish itself as a reliable alternative to the US giant.
“We exist to make sure that everyone gets access to the best AI systems, outside of centralised control exercised by states or corporations that feel the need to control in-fine deployment of AI,” wrote Mistral cofounder and CEO Arthur Mensch in a LinkedIn post.
Although Mensch did not specifically mention Anthropic, he wrote that Mistral “got put in the spotlight in the last few days.”.
Paris-based Mistral launched in 2023 to provide a European alternative to foundational model providers in the US such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta. It has since expanded into AI infrastructure, and is building data centres across Europe to increase the region’s compute capabilities.
The company is Europe’s strongest contender to compete in the AI race, having raised €3.5bn to date in debt and equity. The scaleup is reportedly in talks to raise another €3bn at a valuation of around €20bn.
Mistral offers open-source AI models, meaning customers can inspect, customise and run the technology on their own infrastructure. This enables more control over the systems than closed-source, off-the-shelf models owned by third-party providers allow, such as those offered by some rivals like Anthropic.
“States and organizations need to have sovereignty over [AI technology]: they should own and control the systems that are specifically embedding their IP and tacit knowledge, and will end up running their most critical processes,” said Mensch in the post.
Mistral remains a small player compared to its US-based competitors, with Anthropic recently reaching a $965bn valuation, while OpenAI is valued at $852bn.
Mensch said the French scaleup started “later than others” and has spent “a few percent of the deployment of some of our competitors”; he added that Mistral does “not yet own the best language models” but that the company is working to close the gap.
With AI set to become “the major source of leverage and power in the world”, however, Mistral’s bet is to provide customers with reliability and control.
“We’re building under the premise that AI technology is a commodity technology that every organisation needs a secured and affordable supply of,” said Mensch.
Anthropic did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
