Europe benefits from searching for alternatives to artificial intelligence

Digest opened free editor

Rola Khaleda, FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Mistral Ai has obtained the most famous company in artificial intelligence in Europe with new contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which leads to an increase in its business, which can help fueling possible $ 1 billion -dollar donations this year.

It is based in Paris mistake He faces extensive competition from American and Chinese competitors, but began to benefit from a European batch to create regional champions.

According to the persons familiar with his financial resources, its revenues have increased several times since then The last financing round A year ago, it is on the right path to exceed $ 100 million annually for the first time, if she maintains sales momentum.

A relatively few adult customers lead a lot of this growth. People said that Mistral was closed or was near the seal of a handful of commercial contracts, each of which is not less than $ 100 million over three to five years.

Corporate, public sector and defense agents are increasingly searching for alternatives to American technology companies since Donald Trump has returned to the White House.

“There are many European companies that want to reduce their dependence on American service providers … there is an increasing demand for more strategic self -rule,” said Arthur Minche, CEO of Mistral last month.

This has motivated the poor phases, which value is approximately 6 billion euros in The last financing round A year ago, to start an ambitious program to expand its infrastructure, starting with a large data center outside Paris, in addition to cooperating with the technology and investment groups that are based in Abu Dhabi.

To finance this effort, the company – which has already raised more than one billion dollars since its foundation two years ago – was considering collecting up to one billion dollars, according to the people familiar with the matter. People added that there is a more formal donation process that is unlikely to start people later this year. People added that there is a more formal donation collection process that the process of collecting the most formal donations before the process of collecting the most formal donations is unlikely that the more formal donation process will begin that it is unlikely to start until later this year.

Mistal refused to comment on her financial performance or financing plans.

The NVIDIA -backed company, which has been established by three former Meta and Google DeepMind, has participated behind our competitors such as Openai and Anthropic in both donations and marketing.

Mistral artificial intelligence models, which customers can examine and customize their own applications, also face competition from Deepseek in China and Meta’s Llama.

But the tension between the Trump and Europe administration – as well as the desire of countries around the world to own and operate their infrastructure of artificial intelligence – could serve as a blessing of a mediator, which has generated only tens of millions of dollars in the past year, according to people close to the company.

The latest contracts are designed on the Mistral deal worth 100 million euros with the French charging and logistics group CMA CGM. When this deal was announced in April, CMA CGM RODOLPHE SAADé said that companies will work together on AI “on demand.

Mistral, which includes about 250 employees, has expanded its commercial team in recent months. It has adopted a sales model similar to the Palantir model, which employs a team of “solution engineers” who work like consultants with each client about the best ways to spread artificial intelligence in their business.

This can mean a longer sales process than the Model Foundation’s programs, but with a larger possible prize.

BNP Paribas, Axa, Stelantis and Veolia are among the current Mistral customers. It also has a partnership with Heelsing European Defense Technology.

“Sovereignty is not our basic business, and we are a global company.” “But the last 100 days have doubled three times our business, especially in Europe and outside the United States.”