Microsoft will make French startup Mistral AI’s artificial intelligence models available through its Azure cloud computing platform through a new partnership, the companies said on Monday.

The multi-year deal marks Microsoft’s biggest bet on OpenAI and its efforts to offer a variety of artificial intelligence models as the tech giant looks to attract more customers for its Azure cloud services.

As part of the deal, Microsoft will acquire a minority stake in Mistral, the startup told Reuters without giving details.

Microsoft confirmed its investment in Mistral but said it does not hold an equity stake in the company. The tech giant has come under scrutiny from European and U.S. regulators over its huge investment in OpenAI.

The Paris-based startup works on open source and proprietary large language models (LLMs), similar to those pioneered by OpenAI with ChatGPT, that understand and generate text in a human-like way.

Its latest proprietary model, Mistral Large, will be available first to Azure customers under the partnership. Mistral’s technology will be hosted on Microsoft’s cloud computing platform.

Mistral has also been working with Amazon and Google to distribute its models. A spokesperson said the company plans to make Mistral Large available on other cloud platforms in the coming months.

Mistral was founded by Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, who previously worked on Meta’s artificial intelligence team; and Arthur Mensch, a former Google DeepMind researcher.

© Thomson Reuters 2024