theverge
Microsoft’s Mistral deal beefs up Azure without spurning OpenAI
The Verge
Microsoft’s multiyear deal with French AI company Mistral signaled that the company wants longevity in the space.
The company invested €2 billion ($2.1 billion) into Mistral and announced it would bring Mistral’s newest AI model, Mistral Large, to Azure. But the investment into Mistral, mainly a developer of open-source AI models, doesn’t mean Microsoft lost faith in its first AI child, OpenAI. Instead, Microsoft is laying the groundwork to build Azure as a model garden and give itself a foothold in Europe.
Arun Chandrasekaran, an analyst at Gartner, tells The Verge the deal emphasizes the managed services business of AI, one in which Azure can play a role.
“Even before the Mistral announcement, Microsoft has been talking about…
