French AI startup Mistral said on Monday it has secured $830 million in debt financing to finance a data center staffed by thousands of people. NVIDIA Chips.
Founded in 2023, Mistral is one of the few European startups building basic AI models, looking to compete with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, even if its war chest is much smaller.
The company has focused on investing in the infrastructure needed to power AI, and in February it announced a 1.2 billion euro plan to build data centers and compute capacity in Sweden.
“Growing our infrastructure in Europe is critical to empowering our customers and keeping AI innovation and autonomy at the heart of Europe,” Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch said in a statement.
“Given the growing and continued demand from governments, enterprises and research institutions seeking to build their own customized AI environments rather than relying on third-party cloud providers, we will continue to invest in this area.”
The transaction was supported by a consortium of seven top-tier global banks, including BPIFrance, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, La Banque Postale, MUFG and Natixis CIB.
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