Microsoft has entered into a multi-year partnership with Mistral AI, a French startup specializing in artificial intelligence. This collaboration is part of Microsoft's strategy to diversify its AI offerings on its Azure cloud computing platform, extending beyond its significant investment in OpenAI. As part of the agreement, Microsoft will make Mistral AI's models available on Azure and has also taken a minority stake in the company. Mistral AI is known for its large language models (LLMs) that are similar to those pioneered by OpenAI, capable of understanding and generating human-like text.

Mistral's proprietary model, Mistral Large, will be the first to be made available to Azure customers. The technology will be hosted on Microsoft's cloud platform, and the startup has plans to make its models available on other cloud platforms in the future. Mistral was founded by individuals who previously worked on Meta's artificial intelligence teams and at Google's DeepMind.

The partnership also includes a financial investment from Microsoft, with reports indicating that the tech giant will invest $2.1 billion in Mistral AI to support the startup's commercial growth and market expansion. This investment will also fund research and development of AI models for public sector services in Europe. Additionally, Mistral AI will launch a ChatGPT-style AI chatbot named "Le Chat" as part of its offerings

Microsoft's investment and partnership with Mistral AI come at a time when the company is under regulatory scrutiny in Europe and the U.S. for its large funding in OpenAI. The deal signifies Microsoft's commitment to offering a variety of AI models to its customers and its support for open-source AI platforms

You can read the official announcement here