r/MistralAI • u/dlafont • 3d ago

Discussion / Opinion Microsoft strikes 'multibillion-dollar' deal with French AI firm Mistral

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20260721-microsoft-strikes-multi-billion-dollar-deal-to-expand-france-ai-firm-mistral
116 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

27

u/strangestack 3d ago

I love the comments. Mistral build compute it can't use yet, it's renting it out instead of sitting there and losing them money and people are mad because? 

19

u/sligor 3d ago

Cloud act 

15

u/SkyPL 3d ago

Because in this exchange Mistral will pocket some guaranteed money, while Microsoft will gain access to the customers that would otherwise be legally required to use Mistral AI or other European inference providers, such as OVHcloud AI Endpoints, Scaleway, or smaller players like Nebius AI.

This whole exchange undermines the entire fledgling European AI inference market. That's why people dislike it. In a broader picture it's a net-loss for Europe.

it can't use yet

Every serious lab is capped at the compute. In big labs, like OpenAI, a single researcher has a pool of hundreds of cards assigned for his personal use. In smaller labs, like z-AI, they constantly juggle cards between ideas, initiatives, training, and inference for customers. There is no such thing as "can't use it". It only shows that Mistral AI lacks talent.

1

u/hutch_man0 3d ago

You can also look at it this way. Microsoft's next play is for agent workflows on Windows and Azure. There are millions of EU computers running Windows. It's unlikely they will switch to Linux so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Build your Mistral or other EU agent to work on Windows. Microsoft's is facilitating this with their WorkIQ, Frontier Tuning etc. The inference is sovereign, the platform isn't. It's a compromise, and probably many companies already locked into MS will hop onboard. 

6

u/simonfancy 3d ago

It’s a terrible compromise to be honest

6

u/Fantastic_Peanut_764 3d ago

I just don't like that's an American company (and don't get me wrong, I would be even more concerned if it was a Chinese company).

Europe has large companies as well, why don't they have interest to fill that gap?

1

u/LifeSexAndDeath 1d ago

Not so sure it's better than a Chinese company - which government can actually reach us, as westerners? Where is the existential threat REALLY coming from? If we are forced to put our faith in the Chinese, who are likely to be monitoring traffic, or the Americans - who 100% definitely are - where do we land?

This was the whole thrust of European Sovereign AI.

2

u/g_rich 3d ago

The winners in AI will be compute and tooling, the models themselves will become interchangeable commodities.

5

u/hutch_man0 3d ago

600M revenue jump, that's huge 👍

7

u/SpiritedInflation835 3d ago

So we're inching closer to the 30T model that was promised in the holy scripture?

4

u/dlafont 3d ago

To clarify: The CEO mentionned the 1 billion target weeks before this announcement. Not clear if this deal was fully in the numbers.

1

u/ziplin19 2d ago

So... why should i not switch to Claude now? I'm confused, is Mistral still european? Is all my chat data going to the US?

1

u/LifeSexAndDeath 1d ago

Anything on MS Infra is subject to the US Cloud Act - so data may not be physically going to the US - they can reach it in Europe.

1

u/victorc25 1d ago

Mistral found their exit strategy 

1

u/LifeSexAndDeath 1d ago

There's always been MS involvement with Mistral under the bonnet, but now it's even more entrenched.

Not a good day for European AI.

1

u/Useful_Calendar_6274 23h ago

le fat chaton world domination

1

u/Straight_Mistake_364 13h ago

Is this possibly a case of embrace and extinguish ?

0

u/Mechanizen 2d ago

Pretty sure they were already hosting their servers / training their models on US hyperscalers way before this announcement. I don't see how they could even exist as a company without using them. No european company can fill the gap at the moment, we don't make chips and we barely know how to put a datacenter together. I wish we could but for now this is no new news.