Samsung invests in Europe's most prominent AI startup, Mistral

TL;DR

Samsung Electronics led Mistral's €3 billion Series D round, taking a strategic stake in the European AI startup.

The companies will use Mistral's AI models across Samsung's semiconductor operations, including chip defect detection and equipment optimization.

The partnership focuses on custom on-premises AI models to keep Samsung's sensitive IP and data inside its secure network.

Samsung has been making significant investments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), spanning both hardware and software, and is one of the world's largest AI memory chip manufacturers. The company has now made a major investment in Europe's most prominent and valuable AI startup, Mistral.

Mistral and Samsung have announced a strategic partnership, with Samsung Electronics leading Mistral's €3 billion Series D funding round to secure a strategic equity stake and support long-term technological collaboration.

The collaboration was unveiled in Paris, France, during a state summit highlighting bilateral cooperation between France and South Korea. The exact figure that Samsung invested in Mistral hasn't been made public yet. Mistral is now valued at €21 billion (~$24.4 billion).

As part of this agreement, Samsung will integrate Mistral AI technologies, including its flagship large language model, Mistral Large, across its semiconductor chip operations.

The focus of the partnership is the development of customized, on-premises AI models optimized for semiconductor infrastructure. This architecture ensures that Samsung's sensitive intellectual property (IP) and proprietary data remain entirely within the company's secure network boundaries.

By applying Mistral models to real-world chip fabrication, Samsung plans to tackle complex challenges such as chip defect detection and equipment optimization. It will help accelerate chip development cycles, enhance manufacturing precision, and stabilize chip yields for advanced nodes across the company's foundry, memory, and logic divisions.

Asif Iqbal Shaik - Senior Editor

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First Samsung device: T100

Asif is a computer engineer turned technology journalist. He has been using Samsung phones since 2004, and his current smartphone is the Galaxy S23 Ultra. He loves headphones, mechanical keyboards, and PC hardware. When not writing about technology, he likes watching crime and science fiction movies and TV shows.

Business AI Artificial Intelligence Investment Mistral Samsung Device Solutions Samsung Electronics Samsung Foundry Samsung Memory System LSI

Samsung invests in Europe's most prominent AI startup, Mistral, to improve chips

TL;DR

Asif Iqbal Shaik - Senior Editor