The European Commission has initiated an investigation into Microsoft's €15 million investment in the French AI startup Mistral. The inquiry was prompted closely following Mistral's announcement of its latest large language model known as Au Large, which presents a direct competition to OpenAI's ChatGPT. Mistral, a company established in 2023 by alumni from Google DeepMind and Meta, has already attracted significant attention in the AI sector, securing over €385 million in funding and achieving a valuation of approximately €1.8 billion.
Strategic Partnerships and Regulatory Scrutiny
Mistral's strategic partnership with Microsoft aims to leverage Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform, for developing and deploying its AI models. In exchange, Microsoft provides Mistral with essential hardware and infrastructure support. This collaboration underscores a growing trend where cloud providers invest in AI startups, offering them the computational resources required for large-scale model training. However, this trend has raised concerns among EU regulators. The European Commission is vigilant of such mergers, apprehensive that they could concentrate power within the Big Tech sphere, potentially stifling innovation and fair competition. Lea Zuber, a spokesperson for the Commission, stated they are meticulously analyzing agreements between large digital market players and AI developers to ensure they do not distort market dynamics unfavorably.
EU's Regulatory Framework on AI
The European Commission's scrutiny comes at a time when the EU is intensifying its regulatory focus on AI technologies. Last month, a similar investigation was launched regarding Microsoft's stake in OpenAI. The Commission is actively inviting input from businesses and experts to identify potential competition concerns within the AI industry. Furthermore, the agreement between Microsoft and Mistral will be assessed under the EU's recently agreed AI Act, which aims to categorize and regulate AI systems according to the level of risk they pose. High-impact AI systems, like those developed by Mistral and other leading entities, will require transparent disclosure of training data sources and the implementation of safeguards against generating harmful content.
As the European Commission proceeds with its investigation, both Microsoft and Mistral find themselves at a critical junction where their forward movements could set precedents for AI development collaborations and their regulation within one of the world's most significant markets. The outcome of this investigation could influence not only the future of AI in Europe but also the strategic alignments between leading technology companies and emerging AI innovators.
