Samsung ‘looking to invest’ in French AI leader Mistral

Samsung is actively pursuing investment in the French startup Mistral AI, according to the Financial Times.

The paper reported that the South Korean tech giant is in talks to invest as much as €1 billion in Mistral, citing people familiar with the matter.

In addition to Samsung’s investment, the sources added that the Swedish private investment group EQT could invest in Mistral through its Scaleup Europe Fund, alongside Santander and Novo Holdings.

The funding round could value Mistral at €20 billion in all, they added.

Mistral AI is the leading European AI developer and in September 2025 was valued at €11.7 in a funding round that included the component giant ASML.

To date, Mistral’s AI models have fallen short of the performance demonstrated by the leading US and Chinese firms. The independent AI analysis firm Artificial Analysis ranks its flagship model, Mistral Medium 3.5, ahead of other open-source models but behind Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5, OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol, and Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3.

But the fact that the models are made within the European Union has appeal for companies looking to meet sovereign AI requirements. The push for European AI options has occurred against a backdrop of increasingly inconsistent access to US-developed AI models, after the Trump administration requested Anthropic prevent non-US citizens from accessing its frontier models.

The news comes a day after Mistral signed a deal with Microsoft, which will see the tech giant use Mistral’s Europe-based GPU infrastructure and integrate Mistral’s AI models into its enterprise products.