Samsung is in advanced talks to invest as much as €1 billion in French AI startup Mistral, according to the Financial Times, as part of a funding round that would value the company at €20 billion. That is nearly double the €12 billion valuation Mistral fetched less than a year ago in a round led by Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML. Samsung already holds a stake in Mistral through its corporate venture arm, so this would be a follow-on bet rather than a first move. Other investors reportedly joining the round include EQT's Scaleup Europe fund, Novo Holdings, and Santander. Mistral, founded in 2023, builds open-weight large language models that customers can run without depending on US cloud providers, and it has positioned itself as Europe's flagship answer to OpenAI and Anthropic. The company is reportedly on track for more than $1 billion in annualized revenue by the end of 2026. The talks come as European governments and companies push harder for what they call sovereign AI, infrastructure they control outside Washington's reach, a push that gained urgency after the Trump administration restricted foreign access to Anthropic's newest models. For Samsung, deepening ties with a fast-growing model maker gives it a customer relationship and a seat at the table in Europe's AI buildout, alongside its existing chip and memory business.
Why it matters · Samsung stacking equity in a European model maker on top of its memory and foundry business shows a bigger play to own both ends of the AI value chain, chips and models.
Worth asking · A chip giant buying equity in a model maker, a smart way to lock in both ends of the AI value chain, or capital drifting away from the core business?