Microsoft has announced a strategic partnership with Mistral AI, a French startup specializing in artificial intelligence, to broaden its AI offerings beyond its existing collaboration with OpenAI. The partnership aims to bring Mistral AI’s cutting-edge AI models to Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, enhancing the platform’s capabilities and attracting a wider range of customers.

Under the multi-year agreement, Microsoft will provide support to Mistral AI in bringing its AI models to market. While the financial details of Microsoft’s investment in Mistral AI remain undisclosed, the partnership signifies a significant step towards fostering innovation and competition in the AI industry.

Mistral AI, founded by Timothée Lacroix, Guillaume Lample, and Arthur Mensch, former researchers at Meta and Google, specializes in large language models (LLMs) that power generative AI products. Their latest proprietary model, Mistral Large, will be initially available to Azure customers, offering state-of-the-art capabilities in understanding and generating human-like text.

Microsoft’s collaboration with Mistral AI encompasses three key areas:

1. Supercomputing Infrastructure: Microsoft will provide Mistral AI access to Azure’s AI supercomputing infrastructure, ensuring optimal performance and scalability for AI training and inference workloads.
2. Scale to Market: Mistral AI’s premium models, including Mistral Large, will be available to customers through Models as a Service (MaaS) in Azure AI Studio and Azure Machine Learning model catalog. This initiative enables a diverse selection of both open-source and commercial models for Azure customers worldwide.
3. AI Research and Development: The partnership will explore opportunities for training purpose-specific models tailored for select customers, including European public sector workloads.

Microsoft’s partnership with Mistral AI comes amidst increasing regulatory scrutiny over its $13 billion investment in OpenAI. While emphasizing the importance of the partnership with OpenAI, Microsoft asserts that it does not control the company. Instead, the collaboration with Mistral AI underscores Microsoft’s commitment to fostering innovation and competition in the emerging AI economy.

Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, unveiled the partnership during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, highlighting Microsoft’s dedication to promoting innovation and competition in AI. Smith also outlined a series of principles aimed at encouraging innovation and competition in AI, addressing concerns raised by regulators regarding access to AI infrastructure.

The partnership with Mistral AI represents a significant milestone in Microsoft’s AI journey, as the company continues to invest in AI research and development. With Mistral AI’s models integrated into Azure, Microsoft aims to empower businesses across various industries with advanced AI capabilities, driving transformative innovations and creating new opportunities in the AI economy.