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The French artificial intelligence (AI) company Mistral is now valued at over 21 billion euros, after a new fundraising round of 3 billion carried out notably with the Korean giant Samsung to boost its infrastructure and research work. "This fundraising gives us the means to go faster in research, products and infrastructure," declared its CEO Arthur Mensch in a statement on Tuesday. This financing, which allows it to practically double its total valuation, gives the French startup the momentum to continue to exist in an increasingly competitive and costly global AI race.

Samsung, which was already a shareholder in Mistral, led this new funding round alongside the Scaleup Europe funds, launched by the European Commission, and PSG Equity. "Mistral demonstrates its ability to forge strategic partnerships with the largest industrial players to elevate Europe among the major global AI powers," rejoiced French President Emmanuel Macron on X. The announcement comes on the sidelines of the state visit to France by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, received by Macron on Tuesday. The French leader had met the head of Samsung during his trip to Seoul in the spring.

The Korean group and Mistral thus reported a strategic partnership, without providing details. "Mistral will need the most advanced technologies to compete with its biggest rivals," which Samsung, the world's leading memory chip manufacturer, can provide, explained Lian Jye Su, an analyst at Omdia, to AFP. At the same time, the operation allows Samsung to benefit from the advances of the French champion and to intensify its footprint in the European market, according to this expert. While Mistral becomes continental Europe's best-funded and most valued AI company, its resources remain modest compared to those of American giants in the sector.

OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, raised a record 110 billion dollars last March and Anthropic, the creator of Claude, is preparing for an IPO that could surpass that of SpaceX. These two companies have also unveiled AI models so powerful that their consumer versions need to be restricted due to security risks. - "Efficiency" - "We are more of a mix between Palantir (American data analysis specialist, editor's note) and Anthropic," specified Johan Bergqvist, Mistral's CFO, to AFP. "We have found that we can design models with better economic efficiency than our competitors and therefore our capital needs are not as vast," he continued.

, extrapolated from recent revenues, according to Mr. Bergqvist. Its gamble? To put forward the argument of technological sovereignty to address the concerns of European states and companies, increasingly aware of their technological dependence on America and China. Mistral has thus forged a non-exclusive partnership with the French State to deploy AI in the civil service and ministries, particularly in cybersecurity.