Samsung Electronics Makes a 'Big Bet' on European AI… Will Lee Jae-yong's Vision Pay Off?

Samsung Electronics has decided to make a large-scale investment in “Mistral AI,” a leading European artificial intelligence (AI) model developer. Mistral announced on the 8th that it had secured a total of 3 billion euros (approximately 4.7 trillion won) in Series D funding. Samsung Electronics, Swedish investment firm EQT, and existing investor PSG Equity participated as joint lead investors.

Although the exact amount of Samsung Electronics’ investment out of the 3 billion euros was not disclosed, it is expected to have invested around 1 billion euros given its role as a co-lead investor. BlackRock and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg joined as new investors, while existing investors such as ASML, NVIDIA, Salesforce Ventures, and Index Ventures also participated in the follow-on funding round.

With this investment, Mistral’s enterprise value has risen to over 21 billion euros (approximately 33 trillion won). Mistral stated that this funding round represents the largest equity investment ever received by a privately held technology company in Europe.

Samsung Electronics and Mistral have been coordinating the investment since last April. Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch and other executives visited Samsung Electronics’ Hwaseong campus on April 2 to meet with Jeon Young-hyun, Vice Chairman of Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions (DS) Division, among others. The following day, CEO Mensh also met with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong at a luncheon held to welcome French President Emmanuel Macron on his state visit to South Korea.

With Mistral in need of large-scale AI infrastructure, attention is focused on whether cooperation with Samsung Electronics will materialize in the areas of memory semiconductors and custom AI chips. Mistral is a company founded in Paris, France, in 2023 by CEO Menchu and researchers from Google DeepMind and Meta. It receives support from European countries and companies, including France.

Unlike ChatGPT or Claude, Mistral focuses on “OpenWeights” AI models that companies can freely utilize and has secured more than 125 global companies, including ASML and HSBC, as clients.