Microsoft has unveiled a strategic multiyear partnership with Mistral, a burgeoning French AI startup valued at approximately $2.1 billion. As part of this collaboration, Microsoft will acquire a minor stake in Mistral, marking a notable development merely over a year since Microsoft's substantial $10 billion investment in its OpenAI venture. The partnership focuses on leveraging Mistral's expertise in large language models, echoing Microsoft's earlier commitment to AI advancements, with Mistral's models set to be integrated into Microsoft's Azure AI platform. This move positions Mistral as the second company, following OpenAI, to offer a commercial language model on Azure.
In tandem with the partnership, Mistral introduced its latest AI model, Mistral Large, on February 26, 2024, aimed at competing closely with OpenAI's GPT-4. Notably, Mistral Large, unlike its predecessors, is not open source, offering robust performance and securing the status of the world's second-ranked model generally available through an API. The collaboration further extends to Mistral's new conversational chatbot, Le Chat, reinforcing Microsoft's strategic foray into AI innovation and providing Mistral with new avenues for commercial exploration. The partnership signifies a shift for Mistral from its predominantly open-source approach to a more commercially oriented trajectory, presenting Microsoft with a unique opportunity to diversify its AI portfolio.
