Latest news with #MistralAI
The Citizen
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Citizen
Macron turns to politics on second day of UK state visit
Starmer to urge Macron for 'one in, one out' migrant swap amid growing pressure over illegal Channel crossings. France's President Emmanuel Macron speaks next to CEO of DeepMind Technologies Demis Hassabis (C) and founder and CEO of Mistral AI Arthur Mensch (R) during an AI summit at Imperial College London, in central London on July 9, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP) French President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to Britain turned to politics Wednesday as London was expected to press Paris for new measures to curb undocumented immigration. The ever-rising number of migrants arriving on England's southern coast by small boat from northern France has become a major political headache for Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He is expected to push the French leader to do more to stop the crossings when the two leaders meet over lunch at the prime minister's 10 Downing Street residence. London hopes to strike a 'one in, one out' deal to send small boat migrants back to the continent, in exchange for the UK accepting asylum seekers in Europe who have a British link, the domestic PA news agency reported. In parliament Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party — currently riding high in the polls — challenged Starmer to 'say to the French president we will not accept undocumented males across the English Channel'. There has been mounting frustration in the UK over funding for France to prevent migrants setting off and a law that prevents police intercepting migrant boats while in the water close to shore. ALSO READ: French prosecutors seek murder charge for school stabbing suspect 'We will only provide funding that delivers for our priorities,' Starmer told parliament, adding that the UK had persuaded the French 'to review their laws and tactics on the north coast to take more effective action'. 'I'll be discussing this at meetings with President, Macron,' he added. 'Burden' After he took power a year ago, Starmer promised to 'smash the gangs' getting thousands of migrants onto the small boats, only to see numbers rise to record levels. More than 21,000 migrants have crossed from northern France to southeast England in rudimentary vessels this year as the far-right soars in popularity. In a speech to parliament Tuesday, Macron promised to deliver on measures to cut the number of migrants crossing the English Channel, describing the issue as a 'burden' to both countries. He said France and the UK had a 'shared responsibility to address irregular migration with humanity, solidarity and fairness'. ALSO READ: French grandmother files genocide complaint over Gaza killings The talks at Downing Street come after a first day dominated by pomp and a warm welcome from King Charles III and members of the royal family. Tuesday's royal welcome from King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla included a horse-drawn carriage procession, a 41-gun salute and a sumptuous banquet at Windsor Castle, west of London, for the president and his wife Brigitte. 'Entente amicale' The Macrons began the second day of their visit by paying their respects at the tomb of the late Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor's St George's Chapel. Macron then discussed biodiversity issues with the king during a stroll in the castle grounds before he bade farewell to his host and headed to central London. This is the first state visit by a French president to Britain since Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008 and the first by a European Union head of state since Brexit in 2020. After Britain's acrimonious departure from the European Union, the two countries smoothed post-Brexit tensions in 2023 during a state visit by the famously Francophile king and a summit with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in France. ALSO READ: 'The devil in a white coat': France's most prolific sexual predator sentenced At the state banquet in Macron's honour, Charles toasted a new UK-France 'entente… no longer just cordiale, but now amicale', prompting Macron to laud 'this entente amicale that unites our two fraternal peoples in an unwavering alliance'. On Wednesday morning, Macron also met entrepreneurs and scientists working on artificial intelligence at Imperial College London. Later, he will visit the British Museum to formally announce the loan of the famous Bayeux Tapestry depicting the 1066 Norman conquest of England. On Wednesday evening Macron will meet with the business community at a dinner held in his honour at the Guildhall, a historic building in the City of London, the capital's financial district, with 650 guests in attendance. – By: © Agence France-Presse
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mistral AI seeks $1bn equity funding with potential MGX backing
Mistral AI, one of the major players in the European AI sector, is reportedly engaged in negotiations to raise up to $1bn in equity funding. Potential investors include Abu Dhabi's sovereign technology investor, MGX. According to a report by Bloomberg, these discussions are in preliminary stages and have not yet defined a valuation for Mistral should the financing materialise. The Paris-based AI startup is also seeking substantial debt financing from French banks, including Bpifrance, which is an existing stakeholder. Founded in France in 2023, Mistral focuses on developing open-source large language models (LLMs) and is currently claimed to be Europe's largest AI startup. It has amassed over €1bn ($1.17bn) in investment to date, achieving a €5.8bn ($6.79bn) valuation after last year's fundraising round. In its latest Series B round concluded in June 2024, Mistral raked in €600m ($643m) in funding. Mistral was co-founded by Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, and Timothée Lacroix. The company categorises its LLMs into general purpose, specialist, and research models. These models often use an open-weight structure under an Apache 2.0 license and are accessible across common machine learning platforms, though top-tier models sometimes carry commercial restrictions. Mistral adopts distinct naming conventions for its models, such as 'Mistral 7B' which highlight parameter counts or terms like 'Mistral Large.' Some updates lead to changes in model names, as demonstrated when 'Mistral Large' transitioned to 'Mistral Large 2'. The company's Le Chat platform functions as a beta version chatbot, which was released in February. Le Chat competes with OpenAI's ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms by leveraging intelligent conversation interfaces. It incorporates various models including the advanced multimodal Pixtral 12B. In May 2025, Mistral formed a joint venture with MGX and Nvidia with an aim to create what is projected to be Europe's most extensive AI data centre near Paris. In June 2025, Mistral and oil and gas major TotalEnergies formed a partnership to establish an innovation lab designed to explore digital energy production solutions that transition towards low-carbon technologies. "Mistral AI seeks $1bn equity funding with potential MGX backing" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mistral AI seeks $1bn equity funding with potential MGX backing
Mistral AI, one of the major players in the European AI sector, is reportedly engaged in negotiations to raise up to $1bn in equity funding. Potential investors include Abu Dhabi's sovereign technology investor, MGX. According to a report by Bloomberg, these discussions are in preliminary stages and have not yet defined a valuation for Mistral should the financing materialise. The Paris-based AI startup is also seeking substantial debt financing from French banks, including Bpifrance, which is an existing stakeholder. Founded in France in 2023, Mistral focuses on developing open-source large language models (LLMs) and is currently claimed to be Europe's largest AI startup. It has amassed over €1bn ($1.17bn) in investment to date, achieving a €5.8bn ($6.79bn) valuation after last year's fundraising round. In its latest Series B round concluded in June 2024, Mistral raked in €600m ($643m) in funding. Mistral was co-founded by Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, and Timothée Lacroix. The company categorises its LLMs into general purpose, specialist, and research models. These models often use an open-weight structure under an Apache 2.0 license and are accessible across common machine learning platforms, though top-tier models sometimes carry commercial restrictions. Mistral adopts distinct naming conventions for its models, such as 'Mistral 7B' which highlight parameter counts or terms like 'Mistral Large.' Some updates lead to changes in model names, as demonstrated when 'Mistral Large' transitioned to 'Mistral Large 2'. The company's Le Chat platform functions as a beta version chatbot, which was released in February. Le Chat competes with OpenAI's ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms by leveraging intelligent conversation interfaces. It incorporates various models including the advanced multimodal Pixtral 12B. In May 2025, Mistral formed a joint venture with MGX and Nvidia with an aim to create what is projected to be Europe's most extensive AI data centre near Paris. In June 2025, Mistral and oil and gas major TotalEnergies formed a partnership to establish an innovation lab designed to explore digital energy production solutions that transition towards low-carbon technologies. "Mistral AI seeks $1bn equity funding with potential MGX backing" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Al Jazeera
4 days ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
Why the future of AI may be open (and Chinese)
The release of DeepSeek's R1 – China's powerful new open-source AI model – has sent shockwaves through the global tech industry. Offered for free and royalty-free, it has disrupted financial markets, challenged the United States' dominance in artificial intelligence, and prompted fears that Silicon Valley's tightly guarded business model may no longer hold. DeepSeek's open-source launch is widely seen as a key trigger behind a trillion-dollar tech sell-off in the US, signalling deep investor anxiety over the commodification of AI and China's growing competitiveness. Dubbed 'China's answer' to OpenAI's GPT‑4, R1 has unsettled investors and shifted global AI geopolitics. Reports suggest R1's compute costs were less than $6m, using Nvidia's H800 chips. While full development expenses remain undisclosed, this points to a markedly more cost-effective model than proprietary counterparts. It suggests R1 may have been built for a fraction of OpenAI's GPT‑4 expenses – rumoured at hundreds of millions. This cost efficiency, paired with open access, makes DeepSeek's model uniquely disruptive. Chinese firms like Alibaba, releasing the Qwen3 Embedding series freely, and France's Mistral AI (with Europe's first reasoning LLM) are following suit. The US risks losing ground unless it embraces open-source strategies. After all, early internet giants such as Google and Facebook leveraged free, user-centric services (like Gmail and Maps) to drive adoption before monetising. In a field where secrecy is standard and models are often locked tight, giving away valuable tools seems counterintuitive. Yet OpenAI, once a trailblazer with GPT‑4, now appears cautious. CEO Sam Altman has defended the $500bn Stargate Project, designed to lock in AI leadership. However, practical expansion beyond ChatGPT has been slow, with only a nascent shopping feature launched. US competitors (Google Gemini, Meta Llama, Anthropic Claude) have yet to drive faster or cheaper innovation. Initial US dominance grew on incremental gains, supported by export curbs on Nvidia chips and other tech that slowed Chinese progress. Yet Nvidia's Jensen Huang warned these restrictions could backfire, catalysing China's chip industry and ultimately weakening US control. Open-sourcing has become China's strategic workaround: Legal, scalable, and globally collaborative. It mirrors how Android thrives via external developers. AI improves through iteration, and Chinese firms now leverage open-source ecosystems to refine and scale models without shouldering all costs, just like the Google Play model. Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, described DeepSeek's rise as an open-source triumph, not merely China overtaking the US. Still, geopolitical stakes are clear: Free access debases proprietary models' monetisation path. If open-source achieves parity, commercial models lose leverage. China's industrial strength lies in speed and scale. By saturating the market with low-cost, capable models, it pressures competitors until only the dominant, widely adopted model remains valuable – monetised via advertising, data, or premium add-ons, a route well-trodden by Google and Facebook. US investors are acutely aware. The reported $1 trillion dip following DeepSeek's release reflects systemic concern. For China, open-sourcing is another facet of a national industrial strategy: Subsidise, dominate, and claim benevolent intent via 'AI for good'. Open-sourcing isn't risk-free: If US tech is freely available, global rivals – including Chinese firms – can repurpose and surpass it. The reverse could also be true. China, too, faces limitations. Its strict internet censorship regime raises questions about how open-source models trained in that environment can adapt to global content demands. This has already surfaced on RedNote (Xiaohongshu), a Chinese social media app that recently attracted many American users fleeing a potential TikTok ban. While the cross-cultural exchange has been largely positive, tensions have emerged – particularly around content moderation and censorship of politically sensitive topics like Taiwan and Xinjiang. These constraints could disadvantage Chinese AI models when competing for trust and relevance in international markets. Nonetheless, open-source AI has allowed China to compete without access to cutting-edge US chips, recalibrating the global AI landscape. Even in the US, leaders – from Elon Musk's Grok-1 to OpenAI's evolving stance – have begun to recognise that long-term AI dominance depends not just on proprietary control, but on adoption, accessibility, and innovation at scale. In the end, the path to US AI supremacy may not lie in guarding models behind closed doors, but in embracing the very principles of openness and decentralisation that China is now leveraging to reshape the global playing field. The great irony is that the next leap in US tech dominance may come as an (un)intended consequence of China's so-called 'socialist AI' approach. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Tom's Guide
5 days ago
- Business
- Tom's Guide
Forget ChatGPT — 4 reasons why you should try this chatbot you've (probably) never heard of
When it comes to chatbots, ChatGPT really does rule supreme. It's got the fame, the skills and the backing to be most people's obvious choice. However, it won't always be the best choice for everyone. For a lot of people, other big names like Gemini or Claude could actually be a better option than ChatGPT. But even more surprisingly, there is a smaller chatbot that has been gaining traction recently that could be a great fit for many. Le Chat, a French chatbot created by the team Mistral AI, has built up a cult following. While there are a number of reasons for this, there are four in particular that I think help it stand out against the currently packed chatbot market. We recently covered the fact that when the biggest chatbots were put to the test on privacy, Le Chat came out on top. That means, across a variety of privacy points, it was a better option than ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other big competitors. It is important to note for any die-hard ChatGPT readers here that OpenAI's tool came second. However, Le Chat's parent company Mistral has made privacy one of its big promises. It doesn't train on your data and it doesn't sell any of your information off to other companies. It doesn't even offer up your data to police forces, something that is becoming more common among AI companies. One of Le Chat's other big selling points is its speed. The chatbot offers a 10x speed option, pumping out responses at incredible rates. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. When I asked the chatbot for the best restaurants near me, I was given 10 options with descriptions, prices and sources of information in less than three seconds. It is not just the speed at which the bot processes the response, but also which it responds. With most chatbots, you'll see the response slowly appearing on the screen, word by word. This pumps it all out in once. However, this 10x version is only available a limited amount of times on the free plan. To use it more often you need to upgrade to Le Chat's Pro plan. Speaking of Pro plans, one of Le Chat's other benefits is the price of an upgrade. The chatbot offers free versions: Free, Pro and Team. The Pro plan, complete with unlimited access, more use of the 10x mode and increased use of attachments, only costs $14.99 a month. That makes it one of the cheaper options if you're looking to upgrade your chatbot. ChatGPT, for example, costs $20 a month to upgrade. The Free plan also gives you access to a lot of features, including image generation, a few attempts at 10x speed responses and access to the latest and most powerful version of Le Chat. Memory functions in chatbots aren't for everyone. Le Chat leaves the option up to you, letting you decide whether you want your chatbot to remember details about you and learn your preferences. This is a standout feature on both ChatGPT and Gemini, with models using past conversations and key points to offer a better experience. On the other hand, Claude removes all memory functions. This supports privacy and keeps your data separate from the model. Le Chat leaves that choice up to you, allowing you to choose the version that works best for your needs.
