Mistral has completed Europe's largest-ever fundraising by a private technology company, raising €3 billion in a deal that lifts its valuation to €21 billion. The Paris-based AI model maker announced the new funding round was led by South Korean electronics group Samsung. The company is seen as a leader in supplying Europe with sovereign technology and computing infrastructure.

Arthur Mistral's co-founder and CEO Arthur Mensch stated the capital would remove a key bottleneck in securing computing capacity to catch up with Chinese AI labs in frontier AI training. With this fundraising, Mistral will be controlling an amount of compute very comparable to what Chinese labs have. While the round highlights Mistral as the region's brightest hope in AI, its size also underscores the gulf with global rivals like Anthropic, which has raised around $100 billion this year.

Samsung's investment was another validation of Mistral's utility in high-end manufacturing, especially after Dutch chip equipment maker ASML invested €1.3 billion last year. Samsung plans to use Mistral's AI to improve its chip manufacturing systems. This funding round lays the groundwork for a long-term collaboration between the companies.

The round also included the EU's Scaleup Europe fund managed by EQT and PSG Equity. It values the three-year-old company at €21 billion, including the new capital, up from around €12 billion a year ago. The company recently commercialized an AI model made by Chinese firm Z.ai, a move defended by Mensch as necessary for growth despite criticism it undermines its sovereign claims.

The industry has turned negligence into marketing at this point, Mensch added, taking a swipe at US rivals. The fundraise comes amid growing demand for cybersecurity services from European banks following recent AI security incidents.