Microsoft, Mistral AI Partner to Expand Europe’s AI Infrastructure

Mistral’s artificial intelligence models will also be made available directly to Microsoft customers through the tech giant’s AI platforms, including its Copilot assistant.

The partnership, according to a joint statement by both companies, is aimed at strengthening Europe’s AI infrastructure while enabling Microsoft to meet rising demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence services across the continent.

Neither Microsoft nor Mistral disclosed the financial details of the agreement or revealed the scale of computing resources involved.

However, the French AI company has set a target of securing 200 megawatts of computing capacity by 2027 and plans to expand that figure to one gigawatt by 2030, a level of power generation comparable to the output of one of France’s many nuclear reactors.

READ ALSO: I Left Britain Stronger, Fairer Than I Met It – Keir Starmer

Mistral told AFP that the tie-up “gives us greater visibility to speed up the financing and development of Mistral Compute”, its cloud and AI infrastructure business.

Founded three years ago and with 1,000 staff, Mistral is ploughing four billion euros ($4.6 billion) into data centres in France and Europe, with one already operational outside Paris and another under construction in Sweden.

Its ambitions remain relatively small compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars and gigawatts of compute being built by American firms.

But it joins the multiple generative AI developers now selling computing power to others as the industry expands and high-end chips grow scarce.

For instance, Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI struck a deal with Anthropic in May.

The AI lab behind the Claude chatbot is also in talks for a deal worth billions to use infrastructure belonging to Facebook and Instagram parent Meta, according to media reports.

Microsoft insisted that using infrastructure located physically in Europe could address clients’ growing concerns about dependence on US tech firms in a time of transatlantic discord.

“Europe should have access to the world’s most capable AI without compromising control over their data, operations or digital future,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in the statement.

The company has sought to position itself as the cloud computing provider most compatible with European tech sovereignty concerns.

Clients could run the Mistral models available through Copilot on Microsoft’s cloud computing infrastructure or their own local hardware, the American company said.

AFP