Microsoft and Mistral AI announce a new partnership to accelerate AI innovation and introduce Mistral Large model first on Azure

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Key notes

  • Microsoft and Mistral AI partner to accelerate AI innovation.
  • Mistral Large, a new advanced LLM, is available first on Azure AI.
  • The partnership focuses on supercomputing, market access, and AI research.
Mistral-featured-image

Microsoft announced today a strategic partnership with French AI startup Mistral AI. This collaboration aims to help Mistral expand the reach of its AI models and has acquired a minority stake in the company to solidify the partnership.

This agreement positions Mistral as the second company to offer commercial language models on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, joining OpenAI.

Beyond Microsoft, other major technology companies like Google and Amazon invest heavily in generative AI. Analysts believe generative AI has the potential to revolutionize various industries, from healthcare and finance to entertainment and content creation.

Key highlights of the partnership:

  • Microsoft will provide Mistral AI access to Azure’s cutting-edge AI infrastructure for training and deploying their next-generation large language models (LLMs).
  • Mistral AI’s premium models will be available through Azure AI Studio and Azure Machine Learning’s Models as a Service (MaaS), offering customers a diverse selection of open-source and commercial models.
  • Collaboration on training customized AI models for specific customer needs, including collaborations in the European public sector.

The financial details of the deal have yet to be disclosed. Founded in 2023, In a โ‚ฌ400 million funding round in December, Mistral was valued at โ‚ฌ2 billion. Microsoft has invested around US$13 billion into US AI, OpenAI.

What’s Mistral?

Founded by Arthur Mensch (formerly DeepMind), Timothรฉe Lacroix (formerly Meta), and Guillaume Lample (formerly Meta) in April 2023, Mistral AI is a French company specializing in developing large language models.

Microsoft’s partnership with Mistral is a significant development in the AI landscape. It highlights the growing diversity and competition within generative AI. While the long-term implications are unknown, it contributes to the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence.

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