Microsoft Strikes Deal With Mistral in Push Beyond OpenAI

Microsoft has struck a deal with French AI startup Mistral as it seeks to broaden its involvement in the fast-growing industry beyond OpenAI. From a report: The US tech giant will provide the 10-month-old Paris-based company with help in bringing its AI models to market. Microsoft will also take a minor stake in Mistral, although the financial details have not been disclosed. The partnership makes Mistral the second company to provide commercial language models available on Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform. Microsoft has already invested about $13 billion in San Francisco-based OpenAI, an alliance that is being reviewed by competition watchdogs in the US, EU and UK. Other Big Tech rivals, such as Google and Amazon, are also investing heavily in building generative AI -- software that can produce text, images and code in seconds -- which analysts believe has the capacity to shake up industries across the world. WSJ adds: On Monday, Mistral plans to announce a new AI model, called Mistral Large, that Mensch said can perform some reasoning tasks comparably with GPT-4, OpenAI's most advanced language model to date, and Gemini Ultra, Google's new model. Mensch said his new model cost less than 20 million euros, the equivalent of roughly $22 million, to train. By contrast OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said last year after the release of GPT-4 that training his company's biggest models cost "much more than" $50 million to $100 million.

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