For several years now, the French startup Mistral has established itself as the champion of generative artificial intelligence in France, and even in Europe. She recently displayed her intention to assume this status to defend the colors of the old continent in this technological race. To achieve this, Arthur Mensch and his teams have launched a new project: to create a French sovereign infrastructure entirely dedicated to AI.
The rise of Openai and its essential Chatgpt has enabled many political decision -makers to become aware of the growing strategic importance of this technology. Each passing day makes more obvious the fact that the nations at the top of the AI race will have a significant advantage in terms of economic competitiveness and geopolitical influence, and will be the best positioned to shape the technological landscape of tomorrow.
Mistral compute, an ia European infrastructure
Emmanuel Macron is also aware of this. For some time now, he has openly displayed his intention to position France in this race, in particular to avoid getting bogged down in perpetual dependence on American and Chinese giants. Last February, on the occasion of the Paris International Summit on Artificial Intelligence, he joined the acts to speech by revealing an investment plan of 109 billion euros to develop AI in France. And the contours of this program finally begin to take shape.
During the Living Room, Emmanuel Macron, Jensen Huang (NVIDIA) and Arthur Mensch (Mistral) formalized Mistral Compute, a new Cloud platform that will be fully hosted and managed from Europe. Its objective: massively strengthen the sovereignty and autonomy of France and Europe in the field of AI.
« This foray into infrastructure is a strategic milestone. It allows us to respond to a critical brick of the IA channel “Indicates the co -founder and CEO of Mistral in a press release. “” This is an unprecedented initiative in AI infrastructure in Europe and a strategic initiative which will guarantee that all nation states, companies and research laboratories remain at the cutting edge of IA innovation. »
Technological sovereignty, a concession case
A downside, however: Europe unfortunately does not have all the skills and industrial capacities necessary to set up such a project alone. This gap is particularly glaring in a particular field: Hardware. Indeed, the current IA ecosystem is largely based on specialized equipment that no local actor is capable of producing.
To get closer to its objective, the European quota has therefore had no choice but to associate with a foreign company, which is now essential in this industry. As you have probably guessed, it is about Nvidia, the American Hardware Titan. It is he who will provide the heart and the lungs of this infrastructure, namely 18,000 GB200 GPU under Blackwell architecture, to launch the machine.
Intuitively, one might think that the involvement of Jensen Huang and his teams is enough to question nature ” sovereign »Of this project. Can Europe really claim strategic autonomy if an American giant plays such a central role?
The essential nuance here is that in the current ecosystem, sovereignty cannot be an absolute notion. No country, whatever it is, is entirely autonomous in terms of technological. Even the United States largely depends on Taiwanese specialists in semiconductors, such as TSMC. And the latter rely on equipment designed by actors like ASML, based in the Netherlands.
We must not see this partnership as a renunciation. The value chains are today far too intertwined and interconnected to aim for total autonomy. In practice, it is a pragmatic and essential concession. It’s simply The only way which, in the long term, could allow Europe to reach a certain degree of strategic independence In this sector where it leaves with considerable delay.
A strategic turning point
Admittedly, the equipment essential for this infrastructure is provided by an American company. But the software part – that which directly concerns data processing – will remain in the hands of European entities, and this already represents an important step. Because, in the end, sovereignty does not proclaim itself: it can only be built brick by brick, and this is precisely what Mistral started to do with compute.
French industry seems to be convinced by the project. Still according to Les Echosseveral tricolor giants have already signed contracts to benefit from this infrastructure. The economic daily cites in particular prestigious customers such as BNP Paribas, Orange, Veolia, Thales, Schneider Electric, SNCF or Kyutai, the research institution in artificial intelligence founded by Xavier Niel. All of these companies will benefit from priority access to these resources from 2026, when Mistral Compute should come to the heart of the matter.
It will therefore be necessary to carefully follow the evolution of this platform and, above all, to observe its impact on the technological and strategic autonomy of France and Europe. Because ultimately, more than an industrial project, Mistral computes a real strategic turning point – a strong signal of a Europe decided to play a significant role on the international scene, both technologically and political.
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