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Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

mistral.ai

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Re: Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

#31

Post by simonw »

There's something very interesting about being able to serve strong LLMs at much higher token speeds.

Mistral previously partnered with Cerebras on Le Chat: https://www.cerebras.ai/blog/mistral-le-chat

I'm quite surprised that neither OpenAI nor Anthropic appear to have done a similar deal. Their inference is slow in comparison - like 5.10x slower than what Cerebras can achieve.

Google have their own TPUs which seem to be giving them a performance edge. Google AI mode is lightning fast in comparison to GPT-5 Thinking search for result equality that looks to be in the same ballpark.

... that said, on reading the linked press release there's actually no mention of model performance at all:

> a long-term collaboration agreement to explore the use of AI models across ASML’s product portfolio as well as research, development and operations, to benefit ASML customers with faster time to market and higher performance holistic lithography systems.

Re: Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

#32

Post by asim »

greyb wrote: post #3

I truly do not see the USP for Mistral other than being based in EU. It's former USP of setting up their models on-premises for clients is now moot with the proliferation of open frontier models. I'd love to be proven wrong but I don't see a path forward for Mistral at this point, given how far they're behind and their overall lack of competitive advantages for an AI Lab like access to hardware, cheap energy or a mas…

Eventually with all technology you realise we need regional localised players who can cater to the regulations and nuances of those markets. Yes we'll continue to have global providers of AI technology like OpenAI but it's vitally important to have local players which over time might just offer a better experience to the EU or wherever else. We cannot be continually dependent on the US for everything. This also means we're not going to see it at the scale of revenue and valuations or fundraising as the US and thats ok. It's important not to try play the same game e.g burning all the funding on GPUs and high compensation. Spotify, Adyen, etc have proven their worth starting in the EU. Even in the UK there are specific companies that cater to banking, ride hailing, etc and we need to keep some of that tech local. I think this also goes down to the infrastructure level of technology, cloud and AI which we haven't done enough of. And maybe even mobile and AR glasses.

Re: Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

#33

Post by XorNot »

bakugo wrote: post #27
armarr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they really need to be anything more than the best European option to be successful?

Are they the best European option, though? I haven't checked, but surely there's at least a few services hosted in the EU offering DeepSeek etc inference.

I'm pretty sure Europe doesn't want to cede AI development entirely to China.

Re: Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

#34

Post by spookie »

decide1000 wrote: post #25
greyb wrote: post #3

I truly do not see the USP for Mistral other than being based in EU. It's former USP of setting up their models on-premises for clients is now moot with the proliferation of open frontier models. I'd love to be proven wrong but I don't see a path forward for Mistral at this point, given how far they're behind and their overall lack of competitive advantages for an AI Lab like access to hardware, cheap energy or a mas…

They’ve built performance, enterprise utility, privacy, sovereignty, open innovation and strategic partnerships into their core story. It's quite a list. The models are opensource, Voxtral outperforms Whisper in terms of accuracy. There is no AI company like Mistral.

Agreed. Also, companies tend to prefer having someone else bound by a contract run their AI services. That way they are safe from scandals, by having a scapegoat, and do not spend time doing something orthogonal to their expertise.

Re: Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

#35

Post by saubeidl »

greyb wrote: post #3

I truly do not see the USP for Mistral other than being based in EU. It's former USP of setting up their models on-premises for clients is now moot with the proliferation of open frontier models. I'd love to be proven wrong but I don't see a path forward for Mistral at this point, given how far they're behind and their overall lack of competitive advantages for an AI Lab like access to hardware, cheap energy or a mas…

Even if it were only that, that is an incredibly strong USP for the world's second largest economy. As recent US actions have shown, digital sovereignty is more important than ever.

It's better to be the undisputed leader in the second largest economy than to duke it out for the largest one.

Re: Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

#36

Post by apexalpha »

greyb wrote: post #3

I truly do not see the USP for Mistral other than being based in EU. It's former USP of setting up their models on-premises for clients is now moot with the proliferation of open frontier models. I'd love to be proven wrong but I don't see a path forward for Mistral at this point, given how far they're behind and their overall lack of competitive advantages for an AI Lab like access to hardware, cheap energy or a mas…

That USP seems pretty important in todays world.

What if Trump suddenly block export of new models unless we kiss the ring?

Russia and China have long had a similar strategy of keeping domestic competition alive, even if it initially is behind the foreign competitors. See VK.com and stuff.

As a European: all for it!

Re: Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

#37

Post by molf »

apexalpha wrote: post #29

Good news! ASML has a very strategic position. We are essentially all downstream of this one company. Personally I see this investment as much more political than technical. ASML wants to be a real 'European' champion; not just Dutch. The Dutch and German government are on board; now the French are too. See also: new CEO is French.

Not only are the CEO + COO French, they recently hired Le Maire, French ex-minister of Finance as a strategic advisor. ASML has also been rumoured to exit the Netherlands and relocate to France.

It is definitely a political move.

Re: Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

#38

Post by DrPhish »

ojosilva wrote: post #24
greyb wrote: post #3

I truly do not see the USP for Mistral other than being based in EU. It's former USP of setting up their models on-premises for clients is now moot with the proliferation of open frontier models. I'd love to be proven wrong but I don't see a path forward for Mistral at this point, given how far they're behind and their overall lack of competitive advantages for an AI Lab like access to hardware, cheap energy or a mas…

Except that the risks of running open models from dubious, misaligned foreign sources (China primarily) make it nearly impossible for the enterprise to plug it into their infrastructures today. It's so easy to plug/poison a backdoor into these models, it's not even funny! OTOH, Mistral may be confronted with the fact that enterprises are slow adopting tech, slower in conservative UE, and that for the time being, the…

Model back doors feel like baseless fearmongering. Something like https://rentry.org/IsolatedLinuxWebService should provide a good guarantee of privacy and security.

Re: Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

#39

Post by bakugo »

XorNot wrote: post #33
bakugo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they the best European option, though? I haven't checked, but surely there's at least a few services hosted in the EU offering DeepSeek etc inference.

I'm pretty sure Europe doesn't want to cede AI development entirely to China.

Don't get me wrong, I do wish Mistral's models were competitive with the Chinese ones. But right now, they simply aren't, and might never be in the future.

If you want the best option available while keeping your data within the EU, running a Chinese open weights model on hardware within the EU is likely the way to go.

Re: Mistral raises 1.7B€, partners with ASML

#40

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

adcoleman6 wrote: post #12
darkamaul wrote: post #4

I don’t really get why ASML is putting money into Mistral AI. ASML is specialized in lithography machines. Mistral, on the other hand, is yet another LLM startup. What’s the actual synergy here? The closest angle I can imagine is that AI workloads drive demand for more chips, but I believe ASML is already selling everything it can make.

While I associate Mistral with LLMs, the electric design automation software used for planning and designing chips already uses machine learning/reinforcement learning for some approaches. AI could play an even greater role in chip design in the future.

Llms are fundamentally different algorithms and problem space to IC design and production. Why would mistral be helpful?

I dont see how even the algorithms involved translate well. IC design is closer to a physics simulator connected to a heuristic optimizer. Mabie some ideas from alfageometry or alfafold could be applied, but thats not the kind of research mistral is doing.

And there are big players with existing expertise in the IC design space. Why not just fund them to do more research?

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