Samsung in talks to invest up to €1 billion in Mistral, valuing it at about €20 billion

In 2026, Samsung is in talks to invest up to €1 billion in French AI startup Mistral AI. The deal would raise the company's valuation to roughly €20 billion.

How much is Samsung prepared to invest?

Samsung is discussing an investment of up to €1 billion in Mistral AI, and a round of that size would value the startup at around €20 billion. According to The Decoder, the talks are not yet concluded, and the final terms and amount may still change. For Mistral, this would be one of the largest rounds in the company's history, and a sharp jump in valuation just a few years after its launch.

• Investor: Samsung
• Target: Mistral AI, headquartered in Paris, founded in 2023
• Amount: up to €1 billion
• Post-deal valuation: around €20 billion
• Status: in talks (according to The Decoder)

Samsung is in talks to invest up to one billion euros in

French startup Mistral, which would raise the company's valuation to roughly 20 billion euros.

— as reported by The Decoder

Why does Samsung want this?

Through a deal with Mistral, Samsung would gain direct access to frontier language models without depending entirely on OpenAI and Google. The South Korean conglomerate has spent several years building out its own AI infrastructure: it manufactures memory chips, including HBM for AI accelerators, and builds generative features into its Galaxy devices. A stake in an independent model lab adds a software layer to that hardware: its own source of models, rather than just a platform for other companies' models.

A €1 billion bet is large even for Samsung, and it points to a broader shift: device makers no longer want to remain mere "hardware" running on top of other companies' models. It is also a competitive response. Apple, Google and Chinese vendors are aggressively expanding AI directly inside smartphones, and direct access to a strong model reduces Samsung's dependence on partners who are also rivals. Control over the model itself is becoming as strategic an asset as control over chip manufacturing.

Who is Mistral?

Mistral AI is a French startup founded in Paris in 2023 by alumni of Google DeepMind and Meta*, and one of the few European competitors to OpenAI and Anthropic. The company is known for open-weight models that can be downloaded and run on your own infrastructure, as well as for its Le Chat assistant. The Decoder calls Mistral "Europe's hottest AI startup."

Mistral's valuation has climbed fast. In just a couple of years, the company went from early-stage startup to contender with a valuation in the double-digit billions, raising capital from strategic investors among others. A round with Samsung at a valuation of around €20 billion would cement Mistral's status as Europe's AI champion. In France and the EU, the startup is seen as a symbol of technological sovereignty, a way to keep the generative AI market from falling entirely to American and Chinese companies.

What does this mean?

Major electronics makers are entering the AI race not only with chips but also with stakes in model labs. Samsung's talks with Mistral signal that Europe retains its own center of power in AI, and that direct access to frontier models is becoming a strategic resource on par with control over supply chains. If the €1 billion deal closes, it will be one of the largest investments by an Asian tech giant in a European AI lab, and it will strengthen Mistral's position as a key player outside the US and China. For the market, it is one more confirmation: demand for independent models is turning the best AI labs into a prize contested by the world's largest corporations.

*Meta is designated an extremist organization and banned in Russia.