Microsoft (MSFT, Financials), the software and cloud computing company, is expanding its partnership with French artificial intelligence startup Mistral as it pushes to strengthen its AI presence across Europe.
Under the agreement, Microsoft will make a multibillion-dollar investment to use Mistral's Europe-based GPU infrastructure for cloud and AI services. In return, Mistral will provide its frontier AI models and computing capacity, with its latest Medium 3.5 and OCR 4 models now available through Microsoft Foundry and Copilot Studio.
The partnership also gives enterprise customers more flexibility to deploy Mistral's models across Azure, including public cloud, hybrid environments and fully disconnected systems designed for organizations with strict security and regulatory requirements.
Mistral will expand its computing capacity by deploying thousands of Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs, increasing AI infrastructure available to customers across Europe.
The move reflects Microsoft's broader strategy of pairing its cloud platform with regional AI partners as demand for sovereign AI services continues to grow.
Investors will be watching whether the expanded partnership strengthens Azure's competitive position in Europe while helping Microsoft capture more enterprise AI workloads.