Mistral AI, an independent French artificial intelligence startup supported by Microsoft through their venture capital fund M12, will release its first reasoning model. Onstage at London Tech Week for an interview with CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal, Arthur Mensch dropped an unexpected bombshell. He is the co-founder and CEO of Mistral AI. The new model aims to challenge existing models like those from OpenAI and other competitors by excelling in mathematics and coding.
Also founded in France, Mistral AI’s expertise lies in open-weight large language models. Until now, the company has limited its offering to European languages. It intends to roll out support for other languages in the near future. Mensch emphasized the model’s multilingual reasoning capabilities. Like most traditional AI models that are trained primarily for English or Chinese, he thinks this is what makes it special and stands out.
“Historically, we’ve seen U.S. models reason in English and Chinese models reason in Chinese,” Mensch stated. This brings out the importance of Mistral AI’s mission, which is to serve a linguistic plurality. The move to focus first on European languages shows that the company is serious about its commitment to inclusivity and versatility in the burgeoning AI landscape.
Mistral AI’s latest model for boosting reasoning capabilities arrives during a period of intensifying competition in the rapidly evolving AI field. This year, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek released its reasoning model, R1. This open source LLM has been showing competitive performance, including ChatGPT like functionality, at significantly lower cost than OpenAI’s models. Mistral AI aims to position itself as a formidable player in this evolving market.
Mensch delivered a show stopping performance at the Viva Technology expo in Paris, France, on May 22, 2024. A few months later, they released the new prototype. At this event, he shared insights about the promising, yet extremely turbulent development of the AI industry. He reiterated Mistral’s goal to innovate while maintaining a focus on user accessibility across different languages.
In less than a few hours, we’re going to release our new model of reasoning. It’s the most competitive, fantastic thing that can easily deduct in 100 different languages, as Mensch noted. This announcement is clear proof that Mistral AI is prepared to challenge the deep-pocketed incumbents and turn the tide in favor of multilingual reasoning capabilities.