Samsung is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of euros in Mistral at a €20bn valuation, potentially investing about €1bn in a new fundraising round. The South Korean conglomerate previously backed the French AI start-up through its venture arm.

The talks reflect AI developers' push to secure partnerships with semiconductor suppliers amid surging demand for computing power. Mistral seeks to capitalize on interest from European and Asian entities for alternatives to US AI models after US export controls on Anthropic sparked demand for "sovereign AI." The Paris-based group focuses on open models that customers can customize and control.

Mistral aims to raise several billion euros, less than a year after a €12bn valuation led by ASML. Swedish investor EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund is also in talks. The company raised €1.7bn in September and $830mn in debt financing for Nvidia-powered data centres. CEO Arthur Mensch projects annual recurring revenues exceeding $1bn by year-end.

The industry faces a chip crunch. Micron recently invested in Anthropic with a supply agreement, while Mistral expanded its Microsoft partnership with a "multibillion-dollar commitment" for computing infrastructure, helping fund Nvidia Vera Rubin chips. Mistral's models will be available via Azure.