SML pumps €1.3 billion into Europe’s AI hopeful Mistral

The Dutch chip group ASML is backing the French AI hopeful Mistral: What’s behind the €1.3 billion deal?

European AI hopeful Mistral has found a major shareholder from the tech industry in Dutch chip supplier ASML. According to ASML, it is investing 1.3 billion euros in a financing round and thus holds approximately eleven percent of the French start-up. This increases Mistral’s valuation to just under twelve billion euros.

The two companies are also entering into a strategic partnership. As part of the collaboration, the Dutch group will be able to test models with artificial intelligence (AI) to improve its own products.

The AI start-up Mistral AI (Le Chat) primarily develops open source language models and pays particular attention to privacy. With a market capitalization of around 266 billion euros, ASML is the second most valuable technology company in Europe after SAP.

dpa