Mistral, Samsung add AI chip deal after €3bn funding

French AI firm Mistral said on September 8, 2026, that it had raised three billion euros in a Samsung-led funding round that valued the company at 21 billion euros, or $24 billion, and later announced a strategic partnership with Samsung Electronics on AI chipmaking.

Mistral called the fundraising the largest ever for a European technology company. The company said the money would speed up research, product work and infrastructure spending, and support international expansion.

Chief executive and co-founder Arthur Mensch said the round would let Mistral move faster while giving organisations the ability to run AI at scale on their own terms.

Mistral said Samsung led the latest round after Dutch semiconductor equipment firm ASML led a previous funding round. The company said its notional valuation has nearly doubled since a funding round a year earlier.

Samsung and Mistral said their strategic partnership would use Mistral’s technology to help Samsung design and manufacture computer chips for AI applications. The companies said targeted AI models could be applied to defect detection and equipment optimisation in advanced memory and logic chips.

Mistral has increased infrastructure spending this year, including its first data centre to be built in France. It also signed a July deal with Microsoft to provide AI computing capacity and offer Mistral models directly to Microsoft clients.

Chief financial officer Johan Bergqvist told AFP that Mistral wanted to expand in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America. He said the company could develop some models more cost-efficiently than some competitors, reducing its need for capital compared with larger rivals.

Omdia analyst Lian Jye Su said Samsung’s investment would increase the South Korean company’s access to the European market and diversify its commercial contacts.