In a rush to distance themselves? Microsoft partners with Mistral, a competitor of OpenAI, to accelerate the development of OpenAI.
This collaboration will involve providing Mistral AI's latest artificial intelligence models to Microsoft's clients, and Microsoft has also made a small investment in Mistral AI.
Microsoft and OpenOpenAI's competitor in the European market, Mistral OpenOpenAI SAS, announced on Monday that the two companies have reached a multi-year partnership agreement, aiming to accelerate the development of OpenOpenAI through this new collaboration.
Currently, due to its deep connection with OpenOpenOpenAI, Microsoft is facing increasing political scrutiny globally. According to the cooperation agreement between Microsoft and Mistral OpenOpenAI, the collaboration will involve providing Mistral OpenOpenAI's latest artificial intelligence models to Microsoft's clients.
It is understood that the algorithm models developed by Mistral are similar to those used by OpenOpenOpenAI for chatbots and other services, but Mistral's models are open-source and publicly shared.
In addition, Mistral OpenOpenAI has also launched a model called Mistral Large, claiming to have "unique reasoning capabilities" and fluency in five languages. Microsoft has disclosed making a small investment in this French company, without revealing the specific amount.
In the field of artificial intelligence, Microsoft mainly collaborates with OpenOpenOpenAI and has invested approximately $13 billion in the company. As the primary financial supporter and business partner of OpenOpenOpenAI, this connection has led Microsoft to become the subject of antitrust investigations by the EU and the UK. Microsoft, however, asserts that the two companies operate independently.
Earlier in February, Microsoft announced an investment of €32 billion (about $35 billion) in its data centers in Germany, as part of its broader investment push in Europe.
Established in early 2023, Mistral was founded by former engineers from Google DeepMind and Meta Platforms, positioning itself as a leading European company challenging the US dominance in the OpenOpenAI field. In December, this startup secured $415 million in funding from a range of investors, including Salesforce and Nvidia, valuing the company at around $20 billion.